Case Study

Fruit Processing

Industry
Food & Beverage - Apple Wash & Packaging

Site
Paarl, South Africa

Application
System 2000/6 self-cleaning filter

Problem Description
Water is used as a transport medium and a sanitizer in the washing & packaging process.

Tight water-chemistry control (pH etc) is absolutely critical in this food process.

Excessive and inconsistent levels of organic material such as leaves, dirt, clay and fruit contaminate the water, requiring a fluctuating chemical dosage. The unpredictable nature of the contamination levels poses a highly challenging management issue with a risk of excessive bacterial counts occurring.

Maintaining the appropriate balance between low bacteria counts and acceptable water chemistry is a considerable challenge and could only be achieved by complete and frequent replacement of the water.

Replacing water every 2 days has disadvantages. It results in very high water consumption of up to 75,000 L in 5 days, high chemicals loss, becomes difficult to control, requires excessive labor requirement for monitoring & cleaning and most importantly results in lost production due to frequent process downtime.

Imatech Solution
A Zero Gravity Filters - System 2000/6” self-cleaning filter was installed to continually remove dirt from the process water.
The fully automatic filter was configured to provide automatic sequencing of filtration between the two main wash tanks (every 1.5 hrs) and a smaller third machine (every 12 hrs), delivering a fully standalone, automatic cleaning solution for all the machines in the entire plant

The Results
Quality Control: water chemistry has stabilized, raising the bar of continuous quality control;
Water Savings: previously replaced every 5 days, the 75,000 L process water now lasts 40 days!

Chemicals Savings

Production Up-Time: the production target of 500 bins per day is now achievable

Labor Savings: 4-hour cleaning intervals previously required 10 times every 5 days are now only performed every 35 to 42 days – a reduction of approx 85%!