Hygienic liquid food handling

Belgian company Atlantic Engineering specialises in developing dispensing technology for the food industry, particularly the movement of liquid and semi-liquid foodstuffs such as aqueous substances like brine and viscous meat mixtures like pie fillings.

After observing how a client produced meals for hospitals by manually pouring hundreds of litres of soup into lidded buckets or bags, Atlantic developed Innofill.

The Innofill concept is based on dispensing, filling and safely sealing liquid products in one move, making them suitable for the cook and chill process. By utilising this method, fresh produce can be kept for up to 40 days without loss of quality. As a result, food production companies can work more efficiently, reduce production time and develop new products and strategies. However, the successful development of this concept relied on Atlantic Engineering sourcing a suitable pump.

“Pumps play an important role in all of our systems,” stated Cédric De Bleye at Atlantic Engineering. “We use many different pumps because they have specific properties and advantages. For example, transferring liquids can be carried out with a diaphragm pump, whereas piston pumps are suitable for filling thousands of 250 mL pots of mayonnaise day in, day out. However, piston pumps are not suitable for filling larger receptacles.”

Atlantic chose Watson-Marlow’s Certa sine pump for its Innofill because it was the only one that could fulfil the requirements for the Innofill concept.

The six most important pump aspects with regard to Innofill were:

1. No pulsation.
2. Consistent, accurate flows.
3. Hygienic and easy to clean.
4. Minimal downtime.
5. Gentle handling of viscous fluids, including particles and large pieces of food ingredients.
6. High temperature resistance as the pump is connected to boilers.

Certa delivers gradual flow without pulsation, which is important in order to dispense accurately and package the product correctly — without foaming or loss of integrity.

Total hygiene is facilitated as only a few parts of Certa come into contact with the food and the entire pump can be cleaned quickly using CIP or SIP. The pump is then ready to process a totally different product.

A further benefit is that the Certa pump has only one changeable part, so spares inventory is minimal and maintenance downtime is greatly reduced.