Food Grade Edible Oil Transfer Pump Kit

Customer's Current Manufacturing Process

A Vegan Food Manufacturer producing large amounts of Pesto and Hummus were looking to improve the hygiene in their food manufacturing process.

They were looking to permanently segregate machinery, personnel and objects moving between the Warehouse – an area which was deemed low risk for hygiene and contamination, to high risk zones where food preparation was underway.

Their current process was for IBC’s to travel from the warehouse into food preparation areas via pallet trucks, where edible oil would be dispensed into process, then when empty moved to the warehouse before being replaced with another.

Customer's New Requirement for High Risk and Low Risk Zones

The customer wanted to separate their facility in to two parts – a high and low risk zone. In the low risk location pallet trucks could be moved freely, however in the high risk area where food preparation, mixing and manufacture was underway equipment could not leave the area, with any machinery moved into that location requiring vigorous cleaning, and sanitisation minimising the possibility of contaminants being introduced maintaining a sanitary environment.

The intention was to locate two IBC’s – one of Olive Oil and one of Rapeseed in a low risk zone, with pipework extended vertically 5M from the container which would then travel into the process area. This meant that the oil could be pumped from the IBC’s into process without the need for pallet movements, extended periods of manual cleaning ensuring human resource was freed up for more productive activities.

As the pipework extended 5M vertically this was a high head to overcome- something traditional single phase barrel pumps would struggle with. Barrel pumps are of immersed centrifugal design and delivering such a high head is difficult without using a positive displacement design. Furthermore, with a 5M vertical run immediately after the pump would mean when dispensing stopped the oil would flow back out of pipework making IBC changeover difficult, messy and potentially lead to wasted product. Non return valves could have been installed, however if the line required cleaning in the future, this would make the process difficult.

The customer wanted to control dispensing from where they were creating recipes meaning there was a possibility of dry running due to lack of fluid level visibility being located over 5M away, which would destroy a positive displacement barrel pump quickly. The customer wanted to utilise the top entry point in the IBC rather than bottom outlet so another solution had to be carefully considered.

North Ridge Pumps Hygienic Dispensing System for Edible Oil

North Ridge designed an edible oil dispensing system utilising Hygienic Dip tubes to reach into the bottom of the IBC. The tubes manufactured from Stainless Steel would fit within the IBC and be 1200mm long ensuring they reached contents at the bottom of the container minimising wastage. The tubes would be connected to 3M of suction hose via triclamp connections before being connected to the pump.  

The design chosen for the high head, low flow requirement was 2 AMP Peristaltic Pumps. The benefits of such a design meant:

- There was no possibility of damage to the pumps as they can operate without fluid (dry run)

- The high outlet pressure and low flow could be accommodated with a single-phase motor as small as 0.37Kw

-They are very easy to maintain without extensive training as well as being fully hygienic.

-There are no seals internally to wear, and spare part holding consists of one hose per unit.

 - Peristaltic Pumps are volumetric meaning as speed is changed the volume is predictable as speed is directly proportional to flow making dispensing adjustments easy.

- It would not suffer from slip and when stopped outlet pipework would not drain with oil flowing back through the casing. IBC changeover would be simpler, cleaner and at reduced risk.

The pumps were connected to 2 variable speed Inverter drives enabling the customer to vary dispensing and control units from where they were located. To enable automatic starting and stopping 2 hygienic pressure transducers were fitted to the outlet pipework which would sense when the pressure dropped below the set value automatically starting the pump and stopping when an outlet valve was closed.

The new dispensing system ensured staff were more productive, that hygiene was maintained, that operations were undertaken at lower risk meaning there was an overall increase in productivity and consequently profitability.

Equipment Supplied
2 x AMP16 Peristaltic Pumps
2 x Variable Speed Inverters
2 x Hygienic Pressure Sensors
2 x 3M lengths of Food Grade Hose
2 x IBC Stainless Steel Dip Tubes