Abattoirs

AMC has considerable food processing and abattoir experience and have gained a strong understanding of the specific design and facility requirements for projects in the food and beverage industry. While many local refrigeration design teams take a temperature “only” focussed approach for these facilities, we feel strongly that a holistic approach considering ventilation, relative humidity, condensation mitigation, indoor air quality & filtration, vapour barrier integrity, food safe design and correct material selection is critically important to long term successes for these clients.

AMC has developed the refrigeration and insulation systems for several large industrial facilities, some with up 65 000m of frozen storage, and a current facility of 570 000m of chilled storage (70% at 2°C single space and the remainder at 14°C).

AMC prides itself in ensuring that all efficiency aspects are carefully evaluated and that the cost-benefit analysis carefully comparing capital and lifecycle costing of various options is presented to the client.

We use various energy-saving techniques, heat recovery, and re-use options as well as integration with other services to ensure a holistic facility design are evaluated.

AMC has designed a number of systems integrating cooling and waste heat recovery as well as energy optimisation and improvement of existing facilities. This has allowed us to develop a significant understanding of efficiencies and improvements that can be made to facilities.

AMC has developed a sound understanding of the South African and broader African markets, designing systems suited for the differing operating environments, mechanisation levels and technical maintenance abilities found in these locations.

RELEVANT PAST PROJECTS

The following lists a few relevant projects that we have been involved in:

Refrigeration and HVAC for two large abattoirs. Rapid chilling rooms, processing rooms conditioned to the appropriate RH, and filtration to international IAQ specifications. Solutions include air quality management through conditioning, filtration, and airflow management.

Detail design of the refrigeration and HVAC systems for a ±7 000m extension to a pig abattoir including new carcass chillers, new large deboning room, large storage freezer, 128 ton per day continuous box freezer, as well as large and small chilled areas for staging, processing, receiving and despatch of various products.

Conceptual NH plant design and future expansion planning for a large cattle and sheep abattoir including the detail design of expansions to various areas in the plant such as deboning areas, manufacturing plant processing areas as well as various chillers, sculleries etc surrounding these areas.

Design of the refrigeration (including storage chillers, blast chillers, storage freezers and blast freezers), ventilation for indoor air quality, conditioning, dehumidification and specialist cooking extraction ventilation systems for a ±2 600 m food processing facility, producing various ranges of uncooked frozen meals and Ready to Eat (RTE) meals.

Design of refrigeration, specialist low and medium risk HVAC systems including conditioning, ventilation and suitable filtration for a 1 600m food processing facility producing various processed meats including russians, viennas and polonies.

Detail design of the refrigeration and HVAC systems for a 150 carcass per day cattle / sheep / goat / camel abattoir including new carcass chillers, deboning room, storage chillers and storage freezers for an abattoir in Kenya.

Butchery retail store design (± 850m ) for a South African client including HVAC systems to the trading floor, refrigeration and ventilation to the preparation areas, and refrigeration to serve the low and medium temperature retail cabinets and back of house cold and freezer rooms.

Detail design of the refrigeration and HVAC systems for a ±190 carcass per day cattle abattoir (or ±840 double hung sheep) including new carcass chillers, deboning room, and storage chillers and freezers for an abattoir in KZN, South Africa.

Chilleweni Cold Storage. 6 800m facility of which 5 200m operates at -22°C. Highly efficient two-stage ammonia plant. Primary ammonia is used throughout the entire facility, mechanical, waste heat dehumidification for the receiving areas.

Design review and quality supervision for an abattoir in rural Tanzania in order to ensure best operating efficiency and quality component selection is achieved by the design and supply contractor.

1 858m Frozen (Halaal and Non-Halaal) and chilled distribution centre for Famous Brands, WC. Complete CO transcritical refrigeration system and the first of its kind designed and tendered by a consulting firm in South Africa.