Whatever is being manufactured, plants rely on pumps throughout the production process; whether it’s for dosing specific quantities of ingredients on the line, transferring the finished product into containers and removing any waste product leftover. The process of specifying a pump requires technical knowledge to make sure that you have the right pump to deliver your process without downtime. With 10 years’ experience supplying industrial sites, utilities and manufacturing plants, this is something Castle Pumps Ltd’s technical sales engineers do on a daily basis..
Understanding the customer requirements
A UK food manufacturer was looking to increase the volume of Bolognese sauce production on site. They identified that order to make the process more efficient, they required a pump to transfer the hot, viscous Bolognese sauce containing the mincemeat solids from a drum, enabling them to move it more quickly from production to packaging. They contacted Castle Pumps with their requirement, who identified that this application meant several key requirements had to be fulfilled by the pump:
· Hygienic construction for the safe handling of food
· Capable of handling a viscous product containing soft solids
· Suitable for drum emptying
The customer had two additional requests that would help their process:
· The controlling of the speed of sauce delivery
· The use a nozzle to dispense it into containers.
The right pump for the process
Due to the sauce being for human consumption, the solution of course needed to be food grade and easy to clean. The solution Castle Pumps proposed was an eccentric worm food grade barrel pump approved to FDA and 3A standards, with the body and connections of the tubeset all manufactured of electro polished stainless steel (316 Ti). To meet such hygiene standards, the pump is designed with minimal areas for food to congregate and is easily stripped down for clean in place.
Coming from the positive displacement family of pumps, this food grade pump can generate the pressure required to move the viscous, Bolognese sauce with little shear, preventing the meat solids from being churned into a slurry.
To fulfil the additional requirements from the food manufacturer, Castle Pumps supplied the pump with a variable speed drive, enabling the operator to easily adjust the motor to run at the capacity required to meet the delivery requirements. A bespoke food grade T piece with pressure releief valve was also supplied, allowing the fluid to be circulated back to the tank to prevent the pump from working against a dead head when the nozzle is shut off, which typically damages the pump.
Castle Pumps Ltd supplied this bespoke food grade pumping solution to the customer within 5 weeks of order placement, enabling them to meet their objective of quicker Bolognese production.
