Page 37 - Packaging News Nov-Dec 2019

MEMBER PROFILE INOX
Stocking up with Inox
Food and liquid processing solutions supplier Inox has installed a stock processing system into a Melbourne-based client’s facility, which has improved yields and productivity.
Inox, as a food process engineering firm, specialises in designing and manufacturing complete systems and equipment for heating, cooling, and processing a range of products including dairy and beverages; sauces; dips; soups and stocks; preserves and jams; baby foods; and slurries.
According to Robert Becher, managing director, the company supplies high-quality, compliant, and Australian-made equipment for the food processing, dairy, beverage, pharmaceutical, and allied industries.
“Inox is a company engaged in successfully providing solutions for food and liquid processing. Our goal is to provide our customers with a basis for cost-effective food production that is perfectly customised to suit and improve their products, as well as providing systems that work efficiently and reduce operating costs,” he says.
This year, Inox supplied a Melbourne-based company with a processing system for beef, chicken, seafood and vegetable stock. The system featured a single-user operational interface; safe and ergonomic handling of product throughout the process; hygienic design with zero wastage of product; and improved yield of raw materials by pressure processing, as opposed to the traditional atmospheric process.
“We provided the customer with increased yield, improved processing time from twelve hours down to two hours, and included a heat recovery system to provide heated water for the fully automated clean-in-place system that cleans the process system ready for the next batch,” Becher says.
“The system was designed in conjunction with the customer from its initial feasibility study, through the process design, design of the equipment, and installation and commissioning. All designed and manufactured by Inox in its Melbourne facility, and one hundred per cent Australian made,” he says.
The process involves raw materials being deposited into a stainless steel basket, which is lifted by electric hoist into the automatically- opening pressure vessel. Required water volume
“Our goal is to provide our customers with a basis for cost-effective food production that is perfectly customised to suit and improve their products.” – Robert Becher
is set using a touchscreen, then following the cooking process, clean-in-place water is circulated through the vessel’s heating jacket, which both cools the vessel to allow product discharge and heats the cleaning water, meaning no external heating system is needed.
The liquid stock is pumped through a specially- designed filtration system to a holding tank for the external filling line. After waste material is dumped into a forkliftable hopper, the clean-in-place system cleans the basket within the vessel, thus ensuring that the basket does not leave the food processing room at any point and preventing external contamination.
According to Becher, the result is a cost-effective manufacturing process.
“The process uses pressure and temperature control to ensure that every last component of goodness is extracted from the product and the bone.
“The product is basically ‘squeezed’ and extracted from the raw material. By processing at a higher temperature under pressure, the boiling point is higher than under atmospheric conditions, therefore decreasing the processing time,” he says.
Inox supplies a range of equipment including pasteurising and cooling tunnels; mixing systems; cooking and cooling machinery; pressure vessels; and aseptic vessels.
Inox supplied a Melbourne company with a processing system for beef, chicken, seafood and vegetable stock.
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