INDUSTRY: Dairy Processing

CUSTOMER: Grocery chain that processes their own dairy products.

BACKGROUND
Milk is a valuable nutritious food that has a short shelf-life and requires careful handling. Milk is highly perishable because it is an excellent medium for the growth of microorganisms – particularly bacterial pathogens – that can cause spoilage and diseases in consumers. Milk processing allows the preservation of milk for days, weeks or months and helps to reduce food-borne illness.

The strict requirements within milk processing does not specifically account for gasket failures that go undetected. A customer had recently quarantined 250,000 lbs. of product contaminated with rubber particles. They were at the cross roads of manually inspecting the entire batch or possibly disposing of the entire batch because of the contamination. Either decision is costly, not to mention cleaning of the entire production line to ensure that future batches were not contaminated.

CHALLENGES FACED
Although rubber was the culprit for contamination, the customer’s gasket material of preference was PTFE, light blue in color, that did not have significant contrast with the white dairy product where vision systems would have issues detecting. Unfortunately there is not a one-size fits all solution. Customer asked for a better mouse trap to allow them to better detect when there is a seal failure prior to reaching the end of production. Many of the solutions were very costly until the customer compared the solution cost to the cost of labor to inspect the contaminated product and realized that this process would far exceed any available solution in the market.

OPERATING CONDITIONS

1. Temperature – 145°F to 180°F
2. Application – Tri-Clover connections
3. Media – Milk, Frozen Desserts, Eggnog
4. Pressure – ≤100psi
5. Size – Various

SOLUTION AND BENEFITS
The Detectomer® Family of products were the simple solution due to the inherent properties of the filler material’s ability to be detected with x-ray and/or metal detection technology. These gaskets are fully compatible with all process ingredients and cleaning agents; are physically robust and resilient to abrasive media; provide strong signals in both metal detection and X-ray inspection systems; and remain fully compliant to all industry regulations and standards. In summary, the Detectomer® Family of products ensures long term operational integrity.