Cooked Pork Products Processor

Opportunity: Sales were dramatically on the rise for a Midwestern bacon bits processor. In order to keep up with demand, they needed to increase both their cooking and their cooling capacity.

Problem: Bacon was cooled in a conventional nitrogen cryogenic flatbelt tunnel. There was insufficient plant space to add cooling capacity, and adding additional floor space was impossible.

Cryogenic Systems Equipment was called in to study the problem and propose a solution.Mechanical cooling systems or conventional cryogenic solutions (spiral, longer tunnel, standard triple pass tunnel) were not appropriate. A solution was needed that dramatically increased the customer’s cooling capacity, without requiring additional floor space or increasing the customer’s cooling cost!

Solution: CSE designed, built and installed a new class of cryogenic freezer! A triple pass, flighted tunnel was engineered. To remove the tremendous sensible heat load from the cooked product, liquid nitrogen was specified. In order to take full advantage of that refrigerant, both top and side fan action was added to maximize heat transfer on all three tiers of the freezer.

Result: The new freezer was installed over a weekend. The customer successfully and quickly completed their production increase and were able to meet demand for their product without downtime or excessive capital expenditure.