Associations
SAIRAC JOHANNESBURG
HOSTS FIRST SITE VISIT OF 2021
By Benjamin Brits
Members from around Gauteng came together for a tour through the recently expanded Dr Oetker facility , with a focus on the newly installed plant .
The Dr Oetker facility expansion , in Selby , Johannesburg , was completed towards the end of 2020 and comprises a threestage ammonia system supplied by Energy Partners ( EP ).
Robert Fox , Johannesburg chairman , welcomed members , offering thanks to Dr Oetker for allowing the site visit under the stresses of the current pandemic and all related protocols .
Tebogo Mphepya , group engineering manager for Dr Oetker South Africa then offered a brief history of the company and the types of products produced at the facility , which includes a range from spice powders to complete restaurant-quality frozen pizzas which go through certain pre-baking and then are frozen within a short time frame with large temperature differentials (+ 80 ° C from production to frozen ).
In 2010 , Dr Oetker , an originally German family enterprise , came to South Africa and acquired the well-established businesses of Ital Pizza – known as South Africa ’ s favourite frozen pizza at the time .
In that same year , the now world famous Ristorante thin-crust frozen pizza was launched in South Africa . Dr Oetker ’ s business activities are actively being managed in over 40 countries around the world today .
Mphepya then handed over to the Energy Partners engineering team of Bob Vuletic , Lauren Groenewald and Pieter van den Heever who were there to answer any questions members had as they progressed through the site tour areas .
Vuletic , as the lead engineer in the project , continued the tour by providing an overview of the plant expansion and the logic behind the three-stage cooling system which was installed . He also described that this particular project made use of the Cooling as a Service model ( CaaS ) whereby the client ( Dr Oetker ) would pay a monthly ‘ utility fee ’ for their cooling needs , while committing to a service agreement for a pre-determined number of years without the requirement of investing in a large capital cost up front .
Energy Partners as the ‘ service provider ’ would then own and
maintain the plant over this time , ensuring maximum efficiency . In this particular agreement ( as each are a custom solution for the client ), Dr Oetker could also buy the plant at any point in
Continued on page 15
All images © RACA Journal | Benjamin Brits
Lauren Groenewald ( Energy Partners ) describing the lines at one of the valve stations at the site alongside the cooling pods .
Bob Vuletic talking to some of the members describing the methodology of the three-phase cooling installation in the main plant room .
The main plant room . The installation has a total cooling capacity of 1671kW .
www . hvacronline . co . za RACA Journal I May 2021 13