Leybold vacuum solution for food processing improves shelf-life of food products with significant reduction of food contamination risk
Significant reduction of food contamination risks
Food processing refers to all the transformation steps of raw ingredients into consumable food products. This includes a wide variety of operations resulting, for instance in concentrated fruit juices, ready to pack meat sausages, freeze-dried coffee, or instant foods. Vacuum is often needed for different properties but the applications can involve hot gases, vapors, liquid slugs, soft particles and are often not the easiest ones for vacuum pumps. Fortunately, Leybold has a complete portfolio of robust product
Waste conveying applications
In many food processing facilities, specifically in meat processing, vacuum is used to convey waste products from the processing line to storage tanks for further use. Similarly, vacuum can also be used for animal carcass cleaning, sometimes in combination with steam, or for chicken evisceration. This often results in continuous high working pressure and possible contamination of the pump by water or by small pieces of meat and fat ingress. While oil sealed rotary vane pump will struggle over time, this is exactly the kind of application for which our range CLAWVAC pumps and CLAWVAC systems CPi have been developed.
Tumbling/ Mixing/ Massaging
Tumbling, mixing and massaging are used for meat, fish and seafood products to add or enhance flavor, taste, color, weight, conservation, texture and more. By combination of vacuum, pressure, heat and mechanical effects, tumblers can achieve de-frosting, marinating, curing, cooking and chilling operations.
The wide variety of recipes results in very different challenges for the vacuum pumps and can sometimes lead to pump contamination. Our range of SOGEVAC is a cost-effective solution for less demanding processes while our NOVADRY and CLAWVAC significantly decrease cost of ownership in most difficult processes and can even replace liquid ring pumps. Thanks to our range of stainless-steel enclosure HYGEN, our pumps can be located directly in the production area, eliminating the cost of long pipe work.
Filling / Stuffing
Vacuum stuffers and fillers are mainly used in the production of meat sausages or alternative proteins. With their very compact design and good moisture handling, our range of SOGEVAC rotary vane pumps is an excellent fit for small vacuum stuffers while for the larger and total vacuum stuffer (including hopper feeling), our NOVADRY provides a better cost of ownership
Vacuum cooling
Compared to traditional cooling solutions, vacuum cooling allows a quicker cooling of food products. Vacuum cooling is particularly suited for leafy vegetables (such as lettuce, spinach) but can also be used for more challenging products such as sushi rice or bread. The main advantages of vacuum cooling processes are low energy consumption, fast refrigeration time and significant increase in shelf life.
In vacuum cooling, high pumping speed and water vapor tolerance of the vacuum pumps is critical. Our range of SOGEVAC, NOVADRY and DRYVAC perfectly deliver these two requirements.
Drying / Freeze drying
Drying and freeze drying (starting from frozen product and using sublimation phenomena) are dehydration methods to remove water from the product and extend the shelf life including storage at ambient temperature. There is a wide variety of food drying processes and Leybold provides an appropriate vacuum solution starting from NEO D for small domestic freeze dryers to compact SOGEVAC / RUVAC systems for bigger industrial production. Most demanding production lines use our nearly maintenance-free dry screw pumps such as NOVADRY, DRYVAC or the unique on-site cleanable SCREWLINE.
Beverage degassing
Degassing or deaeration consists of removing gases dissolved in beverages (oxygen, carbon dioxide…) for different purposes including shelf-life extension. Liquid ring pumps are often used but can advantageously be replaced by our dry pumps CLAWVAC, NOVADRY or DRYVAC, that provide stable vacuum level and waste -water disposal cost savings.