Largest infant food plant in Europe works with Lean Gravity
The Chinese infant food manufacturer, Synutra has invested in a new greenfield mega-plant located in Carhaix-Plouguer, Brittany. This facility processes milk into dry baby food intended for export to China. The plant requires 288 million litres milk per year, which is provided by 800 farmers from the Sodiaal regional cooperative. The construction of this greenfield plant began in 2014 and the process involved a total of ten suppliers from ten different countries. Dinnissen Process Technology came into the picture at a relatively late stage with an unusual proposal for the dry mixing line. This turned out to have so many advantages that the concept of the plant and the design of the building were substantially adjusted to suit it.
Synutra already operates four infant food plants in China and had their own tried and tested procedure with mixing line, silos storage for the finished product and pneumatic or screw conveyors to the packaging line. Dinnissen made a proposal for a lean gravity mixing line, which makes optimum use of gravity, so that product conveyor lines were no longer needed. This is beneficial because any mechanical transport, either pneumatically or by screws may cause damage to the product. In the gravity mixing line, all the raw material components are raised up and fully-automatically dosed into the mixer from above. The mixed product is discharged from the bottom of the mixer and goes through multiple process steps below by force of gravity. This does, however, require the necessary height to be available. Dinnissen has already built many lines according to this concept. Various sized mixers can be used with such mixing lines. In this case, Dinnissen has suggested a mixer with a capacity of 4 tonnes per batch, with a mixing time of approximately 1 to 1.5 minutes.
In the Carhaix plant, the milk powder resulting from the drying process and all other bulk ingredients are stored in bulk bags in a huge automated warehouse. This allows the difference between milk supply and the desired output of the plant to be gauged accurately. These bulk bags are the most important input for the mixing line. An AGV system carries the bulk bags to the beginning of the mixing line on level 1. They pass through a cleaning cabin, which disinfects the outside of the bulk bags with ionized air and UV, before entering the high-care area. A quick lift, with a capacity of 26 units per hour, brings these up to level 6, at a height of 24m. The bulk bags are then taken over by one of the four transport systems, which delivers them automatically to the correct unloading station (one of the six stations) via built-in floor guides. After a check scan by the operator and authorisation from the operating system, the bulk bag is hoisted and attached to the unloading station. This high-care procedure is done due to the hygiene requirements
