FEATURE FOCUS: FOOD & BEVERAGE
READY FOODS KEEP THEIR COOL THANKS TO VISCOUS SOLUTION
the pre-cooling exchanger, which cools the product using chilled water; the final cooler, comprising two Unicus scraped surface heat exchangers; and finally, a three-way valve which sends product into the filler tank or back to the balance tank, depending on whether the temperature requirement is met or the filler tank is too full to receive product.
by Matt Hale, international sales & marketing director, HRS B
ased in Denver, Colorado, Ready Foods is a cook and chill company
which manufactures soups and sauces for restaurants and the meat industry. After receiving a large order for one of its meat marinades from a leading chain of quick- service Mexican restaurants, the company needed to increase capacity. The existing process of kettle cooking and steaming the marinade, then chilling it in 5lb pouches in a water cooling system for three hours, would not allow Ready Foods to meet the customer’s increased demand for 2,000lb totes. So, Marco Antonio Abarca, President and owner of Ready Foods, and Greg Hefter, plant engineer, set out to find an alternative solution that would enable them to decrease the length of time it took to cool the marinade and increase production levels.
A SIMPLE SOLUTION However, they soon discovered that finding the right cooling system was no easy task. “Some recommended systems which required a large footprint or a 20ft ceiling height; others could only supply one or two parts of the solution and expected us to source the rest and integrate it ourselves,” adds Hefter. “We don’t have the luxury of a team of engineers on call 24/7, so any system we chose had to be simple to operate and straightforward enough for our mechanics to take care of.”
12 APRIL 2019 | FACTORY EQUIPMENT
FLEXIBLE DESIGN Only one supplier, HRS Heat Exchangers, was able to meet every one of Ready Foods’ requirements, so Abarca and Hefter sent them two versions of their marinade for testing. One was very thin while the other was a concentrated form of the product. “At first, Ready Foods proposed cooling
the thinner product using R-404 refrigerant,” says Cameron Creech, HRS’ US sales & engineering manager. “As that’s an aggressive cooling media, we considered a two-stage cooling system: the first phase would cool the product with chilled water, a much-less aggressive medium; the second stage would involve chilling with ammonia.” The original purchase order for this
solution was issued in July 2017 but shortly after, Ready Foods’ client changed the brief, opting instead for the thicker product and choosing glycol rather than R-404 refrigerant as the cooling medium. HRS quickly put together a revised design and the new PO was approved.
TOTAL SUPPORT HRS’ turnkey solution for Ready Foods comprises a transfer pump to move the product from the cook kettles into the balance tank; a balance tank to receive and mix both recycled and new incoming product; a BP-6 hydraulic pump to push product through the system; a pre-cooler, consisting of 10 AS Series triple-tubes as
The cooling system includes a lockable CIP cabinet, to ensure food safety
HYGIENIC OPERATION HRS also supplied auxiliary equipment, including a cleaning-in-place (CIP) system and a steam-powered hot water set to prevent freezing in the event of a production halt (also used to heat the solution during the automated CIP program). From a food safety point of view, the CIP system was crucial for Ready Foods. “The product is very viscous so being able to clean the scraped surface heat exchanger was vital,” says Creech. “The CIP cabinet and system incorporate a centrifugal CIP pump installed alongside the BP-6 pump. This ensures the correct velocities are met, keeping the entire system clean and hygienic.”
SETTING THE STANDARD The cooling system was commissioned in September 2018 and has been operating successfully ever since. The difference in the volume of product Ready Foods is now able to produce is considerable. “It used to take us three hours to chill the marinade, but we are now able to cool it in just one hour. We’ve been able to keep up with our client’s new, increased demand, even at peak times. On a five-day-a-week basis, we can hit 200,000lbs,” says Abarca. From an operational standpoint, it’s
proved itself to be an integrated system which is not too complex and boasts a small footprint. In addition, due to the fact that a large percentage of Ready Foods’ employees are Spanish-speaking, HRS incorporated a feature on the main page of the program which allows the controls to be switched between English and Spanish. “I’m surprised by how smoothly this
HRS
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project has gone,” enthuses Abarca. “It normally takes a long time to integrate a system into a factory and that’s what I was expecting here, but that has not been the case. The cooling system has allowed us to compete with the larger firms. Not only that, but it’s the type of technology which suits a lot of applications. We are using it to make a meat marinade, but the reality is that we can do anything with it.”
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