Leading Petfood Manufacturer

When it came to providing a bespoke bulk handling solution for a leading petfood manufacturer only the experts at Portasilo Bulk Handling Systems could be relied on to get it right, first time.

Requirement:

When one of the world's leading petfood manufacturers required a bespoke storage and handling facility for the wheat gluten used in its range of cat foods, the company turned to the UK's foremost bulk handling systems specialist, Portasilo Bulk Handling.

Solution:

Portasilo worked with the company to devise a comprehensive system to fulfil its requirements. By liaising closely with the client and applying its own extensive expertise in the food sector, Portasilo was able to design and install a complete solution that was right, first time.

The solution included two aluminium storage silos to receive the bulk deliveries of wheat gluten, which arrives on site in 25-tonne capacity tankers.The product is offloaded using a Portasilo blower unit with an acoustic hood to reduce noise levels.This blower is housed in a new enclosure along with two desiccant dryers, which are used to eliminate moisture within the silo headspace.

The silos themselves are mounted on load cells, which monitor the weight of gluten in each silo. A high-level probe is fitted to the silo roofs to prevent over filling. The risk of pressure build-up and explosions in the silos also needed to be mitigated, so Portasilo specified a pressure-relief valve, explosion-relief panels and a reverse jet cleaned cartridge filter at roof level in each silo.

The new silos were clad externally to harmonise with the surrounding buildings and a connecting bridge was constructed to link the silos to the rest of the plant.To ensure efficient discharge from the base of the silos, vibratory bin activators were fitted to the outlets.The feed rate from the silos onto the conveying line is controlled by a rotary airlock valve.

The gluten is transferred from the silos by a lean-phase vacuum conveying system to a receiver positioned above a buffer hopper. This hopper has a one-tonne capacity and incorporates twin outlet cones. Each cone is fitted with a bin activator to ensure an efficient flow of material out of the hopper. From here, material is transferred either via an existing conveyor system into the processing plant or via a new transfer line to an existing receiver in the plant.

All the equipment was designed and fabricated at the purposebuilt Portasilo factory near York, ready for delivery to site.The complete system was constructed to meet Food Quality Standards and was delivered and installed on schedule.

Comments from the Client:

Project Engineering Manager, leading petfood manufacturer

The petfood manufacturer's Project Engineering Manager, says: "The equipment supplied by Portasilo is performing well and meets all of our specified design requirements. Following this project, we called Portasilo in again to upgrade one of our existing handling systems."

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