Discovery Foods, well known ethnic foods manufacturer, has recently opened a new factory, to meet an increased demand in Mexican food and sandwich wraps, teaming up with cooling specialist Coolmation to ensure its reputation for quality remains second to none. Based in Milton Keynes, the factory has been fitted with a new process-specific, cooling solution designed, supplied and installed by Coolmation specifically for its food application.

Established in 1989, Discovery Foods is a family owned business which offers the taste of the Americas in the UK through the use of good quality and well sourced ingredients in the manufacture of its foods. When opening its new factory in Milton Keynes Discovery Foods had unusual cooling requirements. Coolmation was approached to design a cooling system which would provide both chilled water to mix with the dough product and chilled air to blast cool the tortillas when removed from the oven. In preference to a conventional ‘direct expansion’ (DX) cooling system, Coolmation proposed a ‘secondary refrigerant system’ because of its reduced reliance on large volumes of potentially harmful refrigerants and the contained application of them. 

“We produce approximately 75 tonnes of tortillas per week or about half a million per day,” explains Geoff White, operations manager at the Milton Keynes factory. “As a food manufacturer it is essential to use a cooling solution which is food safe. A secondary refrigerant like glycol answers this process requirement.”

A turnkey project, Coolmation designed, supplied and installed the cooling solution which included a 250kW Rhoss air cooled glycol chiller, as well as, air handling units for blast cooling, glycol pumps and control system. “The challenge with the project was to break with refrigeration industry tradition. Typically in this type of blast cooling application, interconnecting pipe work between the internal and external refrigeration plant would contain high volumes of refrigerant.

“However, using glycol as a secondary refrigerant means that primary refrigerants are contained within the external refrigeration plant, in this case a glycol chiller, while a safe glycol solution is circulated within the pipe work connecting the outdoor chiller to the blast coolers in the room. Not only does this eliminate the potential risk of refrigerant leaks within the food production area, it also significantly minimises the maintenance costs of leak testing, in line with the new F Gas Regulations. Mandatory periodic refrigerant leak testing of a secondary refrigerant system is restricted to the outdoor chiller, whereas with a DX system, it is necessary to leak test the outdoor and indoor plant, as well as all internal pipe-work joints. Containing approximately 10 per cent of the refrigerant of that in a DX system, chilled water systems also dramatically reduce the cost of refrigerant recharging and the harmful effects on the environment in the unlikely event of a leak.” explains Andy Legg, sales director at Coolmation.

Another advantage of using a secondary refrigerant system is its flexibility and simplicity, as a standard ‘pipe fitting job’ as opposed to a specialist ‘refrigeration installation’. Geoff White explains: “One of the reasons for choosing Coolmation was due to the system’s modular approach, which will allow us to very easily scale up by 50% in the future. The installation went very well and was completed on time to a very tight timescale. We are very happy with the project and are in the process of implementing the next stage of increased production capacity, with Coolmation.”