The founder of a large bakery in the south of germany was very quick to recognise the growing popularity of pre-baked frozen products. Since its establishment in the early 90s, the company has developed to become one of the leading manufacturers of pre-baked products such as croissants, danish pastries, pizzas etc.
The extremely modern production plant for these specialities has a total area of around 16,700 m², with the frozen food storage area alone providing room for up to 2,500 stacking pallets.
The starting situation
This baker of specialities knows that it is not only necessary to use high quality ingredients for excellent quality products, but also to deploy first class processing equipment. The “round the clock” production depends on a high degree of functionality, reliability and automation. These were the principal criteria, in addition to hygiene considerations, when planning a new production plant for donuts.
Working together with a leading manufacturer of bakery equipment they sought a solution on how to fill the cooking kettle cleanly, reliably and fully automatically with the blocks of fat / lard.
The solution
Based on its extensive experience in the food industry and in particular in the “customised solutions” area, seepex advised the installation of a special version of the BTCS hygiene open hopper pump.
The pump casing parts and stator are fitted with a heated double jacket to melt the large blocks of fat / lard prior to onward processing. To optimise the filling of the pumping elements – the rotor and stator, a specially designed auger feed screw is incorporated within the pump open hopper.
The fat / lard is added to the cooking kettle hygienically through a totally enclosed heated pipe work system resulting in up to 12,000 donuts being reliably produced every hour.
The benefit
Since being commissioned the seepex pump has been running continuously without problems and with manual handling of blocks limited to de-packing.
“This operation, which is inconspicuous in a positive sense, is valued by all employees”, reports the maintenance shift supervisor confidently.
