Placer Process has always been a proponent to advocating a more sustainable processing of food, beverage, wine, beer, dairy, cannabis, and alternative foods industry. We have been working as the general contractor overseeing overall aspects from building to process equipment and utility equipment. Alternatively, we have been helping our clients in a project-based scope to help manufacturers, like yourselves, to not only improve their production equipment throughput by upgrading the process bottlenecks, identifying improvements within the existing process and utility piping network, but also improving awareness and potential areas where recirculation, water savings, chemical conservation, and water reclamation can align with the government initiatives towards the 2030 sustainable development goals. Furthermore, not only that our team can help you design, fabricate, install, automate, and start-up the valuable equipment with associated piping, but we can also evaluate whether these efforts may also have a potential operational savings to help fund its capital investment.
Here is an example of our most recent clean-in-place (CIP) system installed in the winery educational facility where the graduate students will be able to be acclimatized and have the practical experience to the industry essential equipment across the food and beverage manufacturing facilities.
They can also bring in their unique expertise to the winery industry and help promote a more sustainable cleaning method of the fermentation tanks by using recirculated CIP system chemicals maintained by automated sensors to produce repeatable cleaning consistency, optimize water usage, and allow opportunities to recover and reuse the water for pre-rinsing of the next CIP cycle. Placer Process team designed the CIP system components such as the pumps, tanks, heat exchanger, steam and condensate utility components, and the associated sanitary valves, and sensors. The automatic sanitary valves allow the system to automatically set the flow path from the source chemicals to the various phases of the selected CIP cycle. The automatic sensors help monitor and maintain the target set points. It also helps determining the end of a specific CIP cycle and when it shifts to the next CIP steps.
With the various CIP systems that Placer Process have built over the years, we can assist our customers in selecting process systems that are most beneficial to their unique operations. We also consider our customers’ goals, budget, and operational standards whether the CIP system may have specific requirements such as 3A or FDA approval or a standard sanitary system without additional regulatory requirements. Another point to consider is the level of automation and operators’ involvement in the CIP process. Some customers may require very automated and hands-off approach, while other customers are comfortable with a more manual system. We have seen that some customers may opt for somewhere in between.
Considerations for water conservation and recovery is becoming a recent hot topic in our discussions with our customers due to the initiatives to support a viable effort in reducing waste and water usage within food, beverage, dairy, and winery processing facilities. An example within a CIP system project would involve adding additional water recovery tanks and components to allow storage of recovered water and repurposing the water as alternate pre-rinse water source or other tier 2 strategic water reprocessing function.
We can help the customers navigate their needs and wants, then, built CIP systems within the available footprint. We have a dedicated field team that install our process and utility system skids along with the associated process CIP supply and CIP return piping, utility piping, and your other facility’s needs to integrate the system to your existing process and infrastructure. Connect with us today and find out how Placer Process expertise can help you elevate your next project!
