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WORKING TO WORLD-CLASS AIR STANDARDS
All images supplied by Energy Partners Engineering project
By Eamonn Ryan
How EP Refrigeration transformed Lactalis Clayville’ s HVAC system.
Meeting global standards for infant nutrition requires more than refrigeration. At Lactalis’ Sanulac Clayville facility, Energy Partners Refrigeration led a R59-million HVAC-focused upgrade that set new benchmarks for cleanroom control, compliance and future readiness. As such, this project was as much about the air-conditioning system as refrigeration.
Sanulac Nutritionals Africa Zone is part of the Lactalis Group, the biggest dairy company in the world. Sanulac has a long heritage in the infant milk formula industry.
In infant formula production, air quality is not an afterthought – it is the heart of compliance, safety and consumer trust. When Lactalis, the French-based global dairy leader, acquired Aspen’ s infant milk business in Olifantsfontein, Midrand, it inherited not just a facility, but also the responsibility to align it with some of the strictest international norms in pharmaceutical and foodgrade manufacturing.
The Clayville Nutritionals site, dedicated to producing infant milk powder, already had a legacy HVAC & R setup. But the system was no longer fit for the company’ s expanded ambitions, nor for the tighter air pressure zoning, dehumidification and hygiene requirements demanded by Lactalis’ engineering team in France. The latter did the design specifications to European
The three ammonia charged compressor packages have 50 % excess capacity for future expansion.
RACA Journal I May 2026 standards, with Energy Partners Refrigeration( EPR) following up on that design.
EPR was brought in to deliver a comprehensive HVAC upgrade – one that would transform the facility into a high-care, globally compliant site. Refrigeration would still play the crucial role, supplying chilled and hot water, but it was the air side of the project that aided in defining operations.
A PROJECT ANCHORED IN AIR QUALITY The core aim of the project was to re-zone the production facility with carefully calibrated air pressures and improved filtration. By redesigning the air handling and ducting systems, EPR sought to prevent cross-contamination between clean and less-clean zones, a critical factor when dealing with infant nutrition products.
Manie Magnus, project engineer at EPR, explained that the specifications were stringent:“ The client in France signed off on all the designs. We worked to their performance specifications, which were informed by international norms. On the air side, they provided the design requirements, while we engineered the refrigeration plant to support that.”
The result was a dual system:
• New German-supplied pharmaceutical-grade AHUs( air handling units), with solid construction to eliminate bacterial growth points according to European standards and designed for easy wash-down.
• Stainless steel and textile ducting, engineered for hygiene, flexibility and simplified cleaning routines.
This hybrid approach balanced robustness with practicality. The textile ducting, supplied by EMAIR, could be easily removed, washed and reinstalled – a feature particularly valued in dairy and infant formula environments. Stainless steel handled the critical permanent sections.
A crucial design choice came in the form of the cooling medium. Instead of relying on glycol mixtures, EPR opted for ice water at 2 ° C as the secondary refrigerant.
The decision was driven not by refrigeration efficiency alone, but by dehumidification needs. Infant milk powder requires ultraprecise relative humidity( RH) levels to ensure product stability and compliance. Achieving that balance meant pushing the supply air temperature lower than in standard food facilities.
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