PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
the end of February 2017 and were
awarded the job by the end of March.
They were on site within 10 days and
completed the entire upgrade in only two
and a half months.
It was crucial that the upgrade would
be complete by the end of May 2017, as
FPT had signed a contract and was
getting extra product in.
CATERING FOR A COLD
TREATMENT MARKET
One of the new HC blowers installed in the upgraded chambers.
The result of the modified suction accumulator vessel as per
MRE’s modifications.
CLIENT BRIEF
The client knew exactly what they wanted
on this project. MRE had a service
contract with FPT for the existing plant
room. Thus, MRE was the preferred choice
when it came to handling the upgrade.
FPT simply specified how many cold
rooms they wanted to cool and the
temperature they required — the rest was
up to MRE. MRE’s Dennis van der
Westhuizen designed the system and
Gershwin Cornelius coordinated the
project on site, ensuring everything went
according to plan.
Citrus pallets in the upgraded chambers on the first floor
EXPANDING THE PLANT
The installation comprised upgrades and
extensions to the existing plant room
while also upgrading the five cold stores.
This project included the supply, delivery,
installation, and commissioning of
refrigeration equipment and piping to
the plant room and five cold stores.
The upgrade included the following
capital equipment and modifications:
• A previously used Sullair C20 screw
compressor coupled with a 225kW
Siemens motor was installed to
operate at -10°C suction
temperature and +35°C condensing
temperature.
• An existing suction accumulator has
been modified to suit the upgrade of
the five controlled cold chambers.
• Ten stainless steel coolers have been
installed with new valve stations.
• Each stainless steel/aluminium cooler
has been supplied with three AMS
fans with airflow of 3.1m 3 /s.
TIGHT DEADLINE
The team worked under extreme pressure
with very tight deadlines. MRE quoted by
With the added chambers in place, FPT’s
entire operation runs more smoothly.
The pallets are first inspected according
to the stringent US regulations and then
taken to cold chambers on the ground
floor. As the US is a cold treatment market,
this means the pallets must be under cold
treatment pre-cooling conditions for
72 hours before they can be loaded on
the vessel. Oranges are normally shipped
at 3.5°C, but not for the cold treatment
programme. Product comes in at ambient
temperature and is then cooled to -0.6°C.
For the last 24 hours of the 72-hour pull-
down, it is crucial that the product
maintains that temperature. There must
not be any deviation or the cold treatment
cycle will have to start over.
All the cold treatment cooling is done
on the ground-floor chambers, but when
the ground-floor chambers are full, the
excess pallets for a specific vessel can be
taken to the first floor and kept under
cooling until space becomes available.
Once the pallets have been inspected
for the first vessel, the producers bring in
more pallets for the second vessel. These
will also go up to the first floor.
FPT can now store 4 600 pallets in the
ground-floor chambers and a further 1 500
in the first-floor chambers.
The product arrives from