The Project

    With over 120 years of brand heritage in the Canadian dairy industry, Parmalat Canada is a vibrant company committed to the health and wellness of Canadians. They produce milk and dairy products, fruit juices, cultured products, cheese products and table spreads with such well-known and respected brands as Beatrice, Lactantia, Astro, Black Diamond and Balderson. Not surprisingly Parmalat Canada has become one of the largest, most-dynamic food group companies in Canada, employing almost 3,000 people across 18 operating facilities across the country. Over 200 million families around the world regularly enjoy Parmalat products.

    At Parmalat’s Astro Yogurt Branch, the cooling equipment was antiquated, running inefficiently and proving unreliable. Given Parmalat’s high operating standards, the time came to assess their equipment challenges and put a plan in place to replace and upgrade as required.

Challenge: Setting the Stage for the New Solution

    Parmalat wanted to partner with a proven, experienced resource who shared their passion for quality and innovation. Given their substantial portfolio and enthusiasm for the project at hand, Berg Chilling was selected and invited to put their considerable expertise to work. The process began with taking stock of the current situation, assessing the possible short and long term solutions and determining options and possible scenarios.

    Since time was identified as a factor, the team responded with their customary urgency. Ever responsive, the Berg team threw themselves into detailing the equipment, the units that were operating inefficiently as they cycled on and off and identifying which pieces could be saved. The exhaustive report completed by Berg Chilling clearly outlined the project and the steps necessary to get Parmalat running efficiently now and into the future.

     The new equipment had to fit through a snug opening available in the basement where it was to be installed and it had to be installed with a minimum of downtime for Parmalat. The physical plant posed some challenges. Not only was the basement old, it had low ceilings in many places making the equipment selection interesting. Getting any equipment down to the basement was going to require a specialized set of skills.

    The old, rusty and dirty equipment was cut up and removed. Extreme care was taken to ensure the dirt would not reach the plant upstairs. Special electrical requirements were identified and met with a large PLC designed to control equipment and other building systems communications.

    Berg’s pro-active and co-operative approach was well-received. Wherever possible, every effort was made to incorporate existing pieces of equipment into the solution instead of just scrapping them.

Solution: Equipment Supplied

    The existing chiller system had 2 Falling Film Chillers with an Evaporative Condenser with poor operating controls that caused short cycling. Three Ice Builders that were almost 3 decades old needed to be replaced because they were leaking and continuously breaking down. These Ice Builders were originally selected to provide cooling to process for a short period in any 24-hour day. During the rest of the day, the Ice Builders were to build ice for use when there was a load. In doing so, they’d be storing cooling capacity. Things began to go awry when the Ice Builders were called upon to operate 24-hours a day instead of the original 8-12 hours. This left little time to build ice and left the large cooling tower underutilized.

    The equipment supplied includes 3 dual screw water cooled chiller modules each with matching heat exchanger skid and three chilled water pumps and a central control panel with an Allen Bradley PLC.

    Berg installed the new equipment and removed the existing ancient ice builders. The PLC was called upon to coordinate the operation of the three chillers and the two falling film chillers. The chillers have a capacity of 130 tons when cooling propylene glycol from 43 degrees F to 33 degrees F. (the glycol cools water from the central chilled water tank from 45 degrees F to 35 degrees F).

    The success of this particular project would not have been possible without Berg’s installation team. Tightly scheduled, the team was able to work around the plant’s downtime. This job required the involvement of many and necessitated herculean organizational skills to co-ordinate a successful outcome.

    All of the new equipment was produced by Berg at their own manufacturing facility using proven, well-known components. Their equipment has a reputation for superior quality – the level of which often commands a high re-sale value. Because their solutions and systems are modular in style, they don’t have to be replaced as a company’s needs change and grow.

Environmental Considerations

     Berg was able to make good use of the cooling tower system which, up until now, was underutilized. The water cooled chillers selected for this expansion could use the tower capacity to reject the heat. That way, the equipment used less energy than the air cooled units. In addition, the floating head pressure controls provided with the chillers enabled the chillers to operate at lower condensing temperatures during the winter which results in energy savings.

Results: Running Optimally