Premier Foods is one of the UK's largest producers of branded foods, counting famous names like Ambrosia, Bisto, Hovis, Batchelors and OXO among its brands. But one of the best known is that baker of "Exceedingly Good Cakes" - Mr Kipling. Mr Kipling's cakes and a range of other products are produced at Premier Foods' gi ant bakery in Carlton near Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, where 16 production lines conjure up a range of fruit pies.
Requirements
Cooling plays a vital role in the production processes, but is also needed for air conditioning in the huge production hall. Until 2009 the 16 production lines were served by four reciprocating compressors, which supplied chilled glycol for cooling products and ingredients. Air conditioning had been handled separately by a large centrifugal chiller, which was removed in 2009 because of its age and the type of refrigerant used.
Serious Issues
When IRS was appointed as Premier Food's preferred service provider for refrigeration and air conditioning systems at Carlton some 12 months later, it quickly became clear that the reciprocating compressor packs had serious issues, which were affecting their reliability and efficiency.
Value
The solution was elegantly simple, to reduce the setpoint on the screw compressor so that it was 2°C lower than the setpoint on the reciprocating compressors.
The reduced duty cycle of the unreliable reciprocating sets and the fact that it has been possible to take one set offline, has had a major impact on the maintenance and repair costs, saving around £25,000 a year.
Skills
Mark Parsons, Managing Director of IRS said : "This was a great result for Premier Foods . What we have done sounds very obvious in hindsight, but unless you are monitoring these systems closely, it is easy to assume that all is well - especially if everything seems to be running without problems.
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Why choose IRS?
IRS provide refrigeration and air conditioning services in
order to improve the reliability and efficiency of monitors and systems. Through
this we as a company install and test all equipment to make sure the best
solutions are chosen for the best cost savings.
At Premier Foods Carlton bakery we installed power and temperature
monitoring systems on a critical cooling plant which has resulted in substantial
energy savings for the baker of Mr Kipling’s Cakes.