KDH Projects - Case Studies
Food processing facility, on time & on budget
James Mackle Ltd.
We were commissioned by James Mackle Ltd to design and build their new £3m Apple processing facility in Cambridgeshire. We worked closely with the management team at James Mackle to guide them through the pre-construction phase of the project, planning and building control approvals etc. Construction work is now complete and turned a muddy field into a modern food processing facility of approximately 2800m², complete with office accommodation and amenity facilities. The final phase of the project involved the relocation of all the customers existing production plant and machinery from their old production facility and installing it into the new build over a 4 day shut down period.
Factory refrigeration replacement project
Project cost £745k - completed in 20 week period
This refrigeration project was centred on replacing the factories existing R22 direct expansion cooling system with a 1 MWatt secondary cooling infrastructure, to future proof the factory’s cooling requirement and provide 600kW’s of immediate cooling. The project was carefully planned in conjunction with the factories production schedules and completed on time without loss or disruption of production or factory cooling.
New high & low care areas
Project value £214k - completed in 6 weeks
The project brief was to create cost effective High and Low Care areas to meet the highest hygiene levels enabling a new product launch, ensuring a minimum of financial exposure for our customer. The works included full Food-Crete™ resin floors, stainless steel channel drains and gullies, insulated composite panel walls, ceiling and doors, electrical services and lighting and a glycol secondary refrigeration system.
KDH supply new food factory blast chiller
£105k project for an Esher based food manufacturer
The project posed numerous calculating and design variables for KDH and resulted in a blast chiller with both ambient cooling and refrigeration capabilities. The final air velocities were based on data established by Cambridge Refrigeration Technology to cool product from oven temperature to packing temperature at a constant oven belt speed.
The 5.2m x 7.25m x 5.2m chiller box has 100mm insulated composite panels, comprising thick mineral fibre insulating material, with internal and external finish in white food safe laminate.
Cooling is provided by a direct expansion R404a system, with electronic expansion valves to allow operation with a floating head pressure design. Dual independent circuits, each sized to provide 60% of the required cooling duty, as standby in the unlikely event of system failure. The air-cooled condenser has speed-controlled fans to facilitate the floating head pressure design and to reduce noise generation during night time operation.
Rolling refurbishment
Total cost £500k - project completed in 30 weeks
The brief for this project was for a rolling refurbishment of a food processing facility, while production was maintained. It included an enlarged mixing area, two new WIP chills, a new nut handling area, two new collation areas, a new waste area and new packaging facilities.
Cook House refurbishment
Total cost £100k excluding plant - project completed in 5 weeks
Total refurbishment of an existing cook house facility and the construction of an adjacent WIP chill, including removal of old plant, installation of new drainage, new floors, new ventilation, lighting, wall protection and cladding.
Water pre-cooling project
£40k project total
By relocating and reusing the existing unused MTA 315/N HFC chiller, regeneration time is cut from 10 hours to 5 hours (saving approximately 535 kWh of power input) given the same water usage or allowing twice the number of wash tank changes. The use of the existing 12,000 litre insulated tank was incorporated to ensure sufficient chilled water is available to fill the ice bank reservoir after the wash tanks are refilled.
The existing air cooled chiller, tank and water supply pipe work were incorporated into the system with stainless steel pipe work and a three pump supply and recirculation pump set. each pump being inverter driven.
