The Customer
Bakkavor Food Group specialise in manufacturing private label prepared foods for the top global grocery retailers and well-known international foodservice operators. With a product range of over 5000 and customer base that includes Tesco, M&S, McDonalds & Pizza Express, Bakkavor are a major player in the food processing industry.
The Requirement
The customer required equipment to allow the processing facility in Harrow, Middlesex to increase capacity, due to a growth in demand for their products. Bakkavor were specifically looking to upgrade the pizza processing line of the business.
The Solution
Starfrost worked alongside the Bakkavor to develop the best IQF (Individual Quick Freeze) solution, ensuring maximum throughput, high efficiency and low energy costs for the customer.
Our engineering team custom designed, installed and commissioned a Helix Spiral Chiller with a processing capacity of 6,400 pizza bases per hour (1,900 kg/hr). The Helix Spiral features a 32inch wide stainless steel conveyor belt around a single rotating stainless steel drum, with 32.5 spiralling tiers.
The bespoke spiral chiller is designed to process 12-inch pizza bases, at a rate of over 100 per minute. The freshly baked product enters the in-line chiller at a temperature of +95 degrees Celsius. Each individual pizza base is then chilled down to +3 degrees Celsius.
The Design
This project features Starfrost’s Frost Removal System (FRS), which allows Bakkaavor to operate the chiller for long run times of up to 120 hours between defrosts. The FRS uses dry compressed air to remove frost from the chiller’s evaporator fins during operation, maintaining coil efficiency, without the sequentially defrosting evaporators.
