WMFTG finds pumps solution for challenging foodstuff

Founded in 1956, Sonneveld has built a global reputation manufacturing innovative solutions for the bakery sector. Typical products include bread and cake mixes, glazing agents, marzipan, fillings, marinades and release agents. Some of these offerings are in highly viscous liquid form which was proving difficult for the company’s lobe pumps.

One example was Sonextra Pomodori – a ready-made marinade for various bread types but John de Vos, maintenance engineer at Sonneveld’s Papendrecht plant, explains: 

“Some of our Sonextra marinades contain fresh herbs and have a greasy-type consistency based on natural fats, which proved challenging for our lobe pump. The lobe pump often crushed the fresh herbs excessively and would regularly block, resulting in a suboptimal product and significant downtime.” 

Excessive downtime

“Each time the lobe pump blocked we lost a lot of production as, in order to get it running again, we had to take it apart, which was difficult and time consuming. This meant that both the quality of the end product and downtime due to maintenance were not at the expected levels. 

Extensive trials of the Certa pump revaled the pump excelled on almost all levels, stated de Vos: Most important was the impact on product quality

Arthur Van Geet, Watson-Marlow’s Food & Beverage Sales Engineer, proposed the use of Certa Sine pumps.

Said de Vos. “We are always very cautious about implementing changes to our production processes, but the pump’s features were of great interest, and it seemed a very good match for some of our products.”

Extensive trials of the Certa pump revaled the pump excelled on almost all levels stated de Vos:

Most important was the impact on product quality. Using the Certa pump significantly improved the quality of the end product as the fresh herbs were pumped gently throughout the process. This resulted in a much more aesthetically pleasing product compared with using the lobe pump, he explained.

Another factor was hygiene.

“The Certa pumps have a completely smooth internal surface which prevents product remaining inside and keeps them very clean. If we want to use the pump for another product, a simple CIP cleaning routine suffices. We rinse the pump with hot water and drain it, then we can start right away with the next product.”  

Three years in operation

After favourable trials, Sonneveld opted to replace the lobe pump with a Certa pump for its Sonextra marinades. This pump has been operational for about three years, pumping product with viscosity up to 8,000 cP (containing particulates up to 7mm in size) at rates of up to 5,000 l/h (at 4 bar).

Some time later, bread production ground to a halt due to a broken twin-screw pump used in another part of the process added de Vos.

“The pump supplier could not fix the problem quickly and, what’s worse, we were asked to return the pump to them without knowing how much time or money the repair would cost. This was unacceptable, so we decided to call on Watson-Marlow once more.”