New Technology for Old-Fashioned Candy
NECCO (founded in 1847) is the oldest continuously operating candy company in the U.S.. Best known for their NECCO wafers and conversation candy hearts, they recently undertook an expansion project that would take them out of the heart of Cambridge MA and into new, state of the art facilities.
The starting situation
Before their move, NECCO had been relying on traditional positive displacement pumps to transfer their candy bar fillings. Performance was less than satisfactory, but the primary advantage of their PD pumps was that they took minimal space.
Even as they began planning expansion, design engineers encouraged NECCO management to consider progressive cavity pumps in their new facility. PC pumps could run at the higher pressures needed for the viscous fillings. As they investigated pc pump manufacturers, they discovered two factors that made seepex sanitary pumps stand head and shoulders above their competitors:
1. seepex offers an equal wall stator, meaning that the same performance can be achieved with a compact 2-stage pump that would require a much longer 4-stage with conventional stator geometry, and
2. seepex makes both open and closed joint sanitary pumps; the more economical and long lasting closed joint is perfectly suited for candy fillings.
The solution
seepex recommended their 2-12 BCSB range sanitary pumps with their unique equal wall stator for the new plant. Equal wall stators are made with a revolutionary procedure using a metal tube hydraulically bent into a double helix, the same shape as the helix forming the cavity inside the pumping element.
This makes the thickness of the rubber constant as opposed to the thin and thick sections of elastomer existing in a normal cylindrical tube. seepex recommended equal wall stators because they can handle twice the pressure of conventional designs on non-abrasive fluids, with an even smaller footprint than conventional pc pumps.
The benefit
The seepex pumps transfer nougat, toffee, fudge and caramel fillings. They have performed so reliably for two years that management plans to purchase additional seepex pumps for several additional applications.
