The Food and Beverage Industry Landscape
Proper ingredient transfer equipment is crucial in the food and beverage industry. Manufacturers focus on maintaining optimal efficiency, high product quality, and balancing operating costs. When selecting equipment, organizations focus on several critical factors. These include flow rate and fluid characteristics (e.g., viscosity, temperature, abrasion, shear, and particle size).
Additionally, equipment material compatibility is also necessary to ensure safety and reliability:
Services such as CIP (clean-in-place), COP (clean-out-of-place), SIP (steam-in-place)
Process cleanability and batch or continuous operational concerns
Conformance to industry regulating entities such as the FDA, USDA/3-A, and EHEDG
All these factors are essential to equipment selection.
Moreover, the prevention of product contamination is crucial. A current challenge involves maintaining the separation between the pumped product and the mechanical elements driving the compression stage(s). To aid in this, organizations select pumps, valves, and lubricants based on:
The degree of hygiene required
Compliance with these standards
Process cleaning methods and their associated costs,
Productivity
Plant safety
Organizations also use special mechanical seals, diaphragms, air gaps, and other types of systems to prevent compromising products. The purpose of these separator systems is to prevent contact between the hydraulic oil used to lubricate the pump and the food product chamber. Plus, these steps help to maintain product integrity. Product handling can affect texture, taste, and appearance. Some fluids need shear to get them to a viscosity where they can transfer, whereas others can become damaged due to shearing.
Compliance with Health Standards
For all equipment utilized in the food and beverage industry, FDA-approved materials are essential for wetted components, elastomers, and lubricants. Beyond this requirement, more stringent standards such as sanitary, 3-A, 3-A-SS1, USDA, and EHEDG may be applicable.
For FDA compliance, all components must comply with the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Title 21, Part 177. All components must satisfy the guidelines for safe, direct contact with food (food-grade), and the material must be able to withstand environmental conditions. Another certification commonly cited is NSF. This relates to water treatment and establishes stringent requirements for all equipment in contact with potable water from its source to tap.
Estabrook’s Expertise and Offerings for the Food and Beverage Industry
Estabrook has an extensive portfolio of products for utilization within food and beverage facilities depending upon the hygienic standards required. Pumps commonly utilized in food and beverage applications are:
Reciprocating PD (Positive Displacement)
AODD (Air-Operated Double Diaphragm)
PC (Progressive Cavity)
Rotary Lobe/Piston
Peristaltic Hose
Centrifugal
For your most stringent hygienic pump applications, ITT Bornemann (twin screw) Model SLH; Netzsch TORNADO (rotary lobe) and NEMO (progressive cavity); and Warren Rupp Sandpiper products offer compliance to Sanitary 3-A and FDA requirements.
Several pump lines that we represent offer FDA compliant and NSF products:
Xylem/Goulds Water Technology
Xylem/Goulds Water Technology offers an extensive array of centrifugal pumps/booster packages, such as Stainless Steel model NPE, NPO, eSH, eSV, eHM, MCS, ICS, 3656/3757 & LB; Stainless-fitted Model e-XC; AquaForce & Aquaboost Stainless packages, lineshaft/submersible turbine and several additional bronze-fitted models such as Model 3656/3756.
Warren Rupp and Yamada Use Compressed Air
Warren Rupp uses compressed air to transfer a known volume of liquid from point A to point B. Due to the variety of materials available and their inherent operating characteristics, there aren’t many liquids that can’t be pumped with an air operated double diaphragm pump.
Yamada offers FDA-compliant passivation and clamp fittings as available options. AODD pumps offer run dry capability, the ability to handle solids without damage to pump or product, self-priming, and the ability to dead-head safely. They will also not shear or separate products, are submersible, are sealless for ease of maintenance, operate batch/intermittent or continuous duty, and provide various porting options.
Pulsatron
Pulsatron offers NSF 61 for water treatment and disinfection services and Series A+, C(+), E(+), E-DC, MP, T7 metering pumps for pH control, acids/caustics, bleaches, catalyst, cleaning, and solvent applications.
Mech-O-Matic
While Mech-O-Matic metering pumps do not have approval for food and beverage processing, organizations use them for disinfection and sanitation services handling chemical solutions and slurries.
Finish-Thompson
Finish-Thompson Centrifugal Pumps are FDA compliant and offer tri-clamp configurations. Polypropylene and PVDF constructions—which are FDA-approved—and various elastomers (e.g., kalrez, Teflon, viton, and EPDM) are standard options.
Cornell
Many of Cornell's Centrifugal models are compliant with NSF 61, suitable for hot oil and wastewater services. The company specifically designed the Series P & PP (Hydro-Transport) pumps for the agriculture market to provide negligible damage to food products.
SPX
While the SPX Flow (CombiTherm and CombiTherm +) are not NSF- or FDA-compliant, the industry utilizes these centrifugal pumps with ovens, fryers, the distillation of fatty acids and glycerin services, fat softening, potato chips, and milk powder.
ITT Goulds and Gorman-Rupp
Numerous ITT Goulds (some models are NSF certified) and Gorman-Rupp pumps function in applications within food and beverage facilities—though not within the F&B process—offering reliability in ancillary services. These services include Condensate, Boiler Feed, Sump (overflow), Cooling water, Booster, Cooling Tower, and general transfer.
Chesterton
Estabrook also offers Chesterton products for sanitary and non-sanitary sealing applications. Chesterton provides products for sealing, lubricating, and metal coating to enhance the efficiency and reliability of food processing equipment.
Chesterton mechanical seals that meet NSF/ANSI 61 are Type 150, 155, and 180 single cartridge seals, as well as Type 442C and 442PR cartridge split seals. Chesterton also offers NSF H1 & H2 bearing lubricants to improve the bearing reliability in the harsh conditions of load, temperature, water, and corrosion which challenge the food and beverage industry. Chesterton also offers NSF industrial lubricants for chain drives, gears, belts, and rollers. Additionally, the company offers penetrating oil, anti-seize, gaskets/tape, corrosion inhibitors, cleaners, and degreasers to maintain plant equipment.
To increase mean time between failures (MTBF) and assist in reducing costly downtime due to premature bearing failure, Chesterton offers LUBRI-CUP, an automatic lubrication dispenser, which provides a precise amount of lubrication at specific intervals to avoid under- and over-lubrication of bearings.
Assmann
Estabrook also offers Assmann Plastic Tanks. These are suitable for use in the food and beverage industry for CIP tanks (caustics/acids) and other services where FDA-approved plastic tanks are suitable (not suitable for products intended for human consumption). Assmann builds its tanks with FDA-approved high-density crosslink polyethylene and FDA-approved linear polyethylene).
Process Valves
Estabrook also offers process valves suitable for the Food and Beverage industry:
Tru-Flo for sanitary services: Ball (direct-mount, diverter 3-way, multi-port 3-way), Butterfly (manual and automatic) and check valves all FDA-, USDA-, and 3-A compliant
ASCO Water conditioning and purification valves are NSF certified
Delta T butterfly valves are NSF/ANSI 372 and NSF/ANSI 61 certified
Pratt valves NSF 61/372 certified
MAX-AIR actuators, when coated with LockMesh coating, are FDA approved
As a note, many food and beverage applications only require MOC (material of construction) to be FDA approved, so many of our other valves are also suitable.
ITT i-Alert
As with all industries, maintenance costs for food and beverage manufacturers raise concerns. Maintenance costs represent approximately 15-20% of their total production costs. Estabrook offers equipment condition monitoring to assist with preventative maintenance.
ITT i-Alert will provide reliability to ensure the high volume/fast output demanded by the food and beverage industry. If a failure occurs, the cost of production downtime can quickly total tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Implementing a culture of preventative maintenance through condition monitoring allows food and beverage manufacturers to optimize the scheduling of maintenance to eliminate production downtime and increase the operating life and reliability of assets.
ITT i-Alert provides sensors, apps, gateway, diagnostics, and Ai Platform to eliminate unplanned downtime, identify poor-performing equipment, and improve production and safety. With the i-Alert app connected to the condition monitor, the i-Alert 2 can work with any critical pump, fan, blower, or other rotating equipment for early detection of machine failure, vibration/temperature run-time monitoring & data logging with trend analysis.
Monitor all of your i-Alert sensors and machines from a simple interface. The I-Alert platform allows you to remotely monitor and provide diagnostics to troubleshoot potential issues to prevent unplanned downtime. Authorized personnel can receive alerts via text or email. The i-Alert gateway provides a secure connection between the i-Alert sensors and the i-Alert portal. After powering on the gateway, it automatically connects to the cellular network and configures all the i-Alert sensors in range.
Estabrook remains dedicated to understanding and solving your hydraulic requirements. We take complex process conditions and convert them to total system solutions.
Estabrook has been a quality provider of Industrial Fluid Handling Solutions for over 55 years. To learn more about our broad range of Industrial applications and pump solutions that we can provide to your organization, please click on the Contact Us Now link: