Watershed Foods Selects Praxair’s ColdFront™ Solid Belt Freezing System
Watershed Foods selected to install the first solid stainless steel conveyer belt freezing system developed by Praxair, Inc. (NYSE:PX). The debut unit was installed at Watershed’s Illinois facility and is now in full production mode following a successful beta site testing period. The new solid belt freezing system employs advanced technologies developed by Praxair for the food industry that expands the ability of processors to cryogenically freeze excessively wet, soft, fragile or semi-solid food products.
read more
Watershed Foods Selects Praxair’s ColdFront™ Solid Belt Freezing System
Watershed Foods selected to install the first solid stainless steel conveyer belt freezing system developed by Praxair, Inc. (NYSE:PX). The debut unit was installed at Watershed’s Illinois facility and is now in full production mode following a successful beta site testing period. The new solid belt freezing system employs advanced technologies developed by Praxair for the food industry that expands the ability of processors to cryogenically freeze excessively wet, soft, fragile or semi-solid food products.
Watershed Foods, headquartered in Gridley, Ill., is a world-class supplier of ingredients to a wide variety of companies covering an extensive range of food processing sectors - from small candy companies to Fortune 500 organizations.
“We are constantly challenged by our customers to provide new and unique food products to meet their continually evolving needs,” said Jeremy Zobrist, president of Watershed Foods. “Praxair’s sales representatives, business development leaders plus research & development engineers and their food laboratory experts worked with us to provide the solid belt freezing technology that helped us make these new products. Praxair’s technical team was there when we needed them to provide the critical support necessary for this new chilling and freezing technology.”
“The novel chilling and freezing system delivered the production increase, reliability and product quality Watershed Foods was looking for on their difficult to freeze products, using minimum floor space,” commented Frank Martin, Praxair’s Marketing Manager - Food Refrigeration. “The unique Praxair cryogenic delivery system creates an extremely cold, solid stainless steel belt to quickly freeze the underside of the product without creating marks or losing liquids while ensuring the unique shape of the product is maintained. This tunnel freezer not only meets the new USDA sanitation standards (NSF/ANSI/3-A 14159-3), but the solid belt itself is the only cryogenically cooled metal belt that is also accepted under these stringent criteria.” added Martin.
The ColdFront™ solid belt freezing system incorporates patent pending technologies that integrate a solid stainless steel conveyer belt with a high efficiency cryogen delivery system in a space saving tunnel design to allow processing of a wide variety of food products not ideally suited for traditional belt conveyor systems.
Praxair Launches Certified Rebuilt Freezer Program
Praxair, Inc. (NYSE: PX) today announced a cryogenic freezer program to refurbish used equipment for resale to food freezing customers. The Praxair® certified rebuilt freezers are...
read more
Praxair Launches Certified Rebuilt Freezer Program
Praxair, Inc. (NYSE: PX) today announced a cryogenic freezer program to refurbish used equipment for resale to food freezing customers. The Praxair® certified rebuilt freezers are subjected to a 30-point evaluation that identifies components and systems needing repair. The refurbished units are then made available to the market at significant savings, up to 50% reduction in capital costs, compared to brand new equipment.
Unlike other used freezers, which are not customized to the customer's needs and have no warranty, the Praxair certified rebuilt freezer program is more than just used equipment. The process is unique because it starts by recapturing the inherent benefits of reliability, high production rates and efficient cryogen usage of a Praxair® freezer. According to Frank Martin, market development manager, "The process ensures that our customers are receiving cryogenic freezing equipment that is customized to their specific product based on our Food Lab tests. They can just put in place, turn it on and be confident that it will operate reliably and deliver the promised production rate."
Praxair's freezer engineering facility centered in Wooster, Ohio is where the certification process occurs. The top-to-bottom review by an extensively experienced team inspects all elements, replacing any worn parts with new components specifically designed for the Praxair freezer. Final documentation includes an updated owner's manual and original design details.
Praxair is the largest industrial gases company in North and South America, and one of the largest worldwide, with 2001 sales of $5.1 billion. The company produces, sells and distributes atmospheric and process gases, and high-performance surface coatings. Praxair products, services and technologies bring productivity and environmental benefits to a wide variety of industries, including aerospace, chemicals, food and beverage, electronics, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, metals and others.
Praxair’s Food Technologies Laboratory Debuts New Equipment
The Praxair Food Laboratory helps customers fully understand how cryogenic chilling and freezing will affect their product. When testing on full-size equipment in the Food Lab, customers can...
read more
Praxair’s Food Technologies Laboratory Debuts New Equipment
The Praxair Food Laboratory helps customers fully understand how cryogenic chilling and freezing will affect their product. When testing on full-size equipment in the Food Lab, customers can see the results before starting up a new process at their facility. Recent upgrades and brand new models of Praxair's extensive cryogenic equipment line are now in the lab. So whether you need to see and evaluate straight tunnel, flighted or spiral equipment for freezing or chilling options, using the continuous rotary systems, the Praxair Food Lab is an invaluable starting point.
The most recent arrivals to the Food Lab are the ColdFront™ ultra performance systems, which meet the latest USDA guidelines for sanitary equipment. These new systems also use the power of cryogenic gases more efficiently and extract more cooling power in the same footprint of traditional cryogenic systems.
But the lab offers so much more by thoroughly evaluating the thermal characteristics of your product through actual testing and archival data. Combining the knowledge of the physical characteristics of your product with equipment testing results, yields the best options for your process. Proper equipment sizing, product loading, belt speed and target temperature point are just a few of the factors that can be determined by the experts in the Praxair Food Lab.
Lastly, your product can even be prepared in the Food Lab kitchen to simulate either how you process it or how the consumer would cook, boil, bake or fry your product. You get a better understanding of your product whether: 1) it's prepared and then frozen or chilled or 2) if it is frozen or chilled and then prepared. It's win/win for your process.
For more information about Praxair's Food Technologies Laboratory...download a PDF
ColdFront™ ultra performance spiral freezer boosts production for Praxair's Canadian customer
New spiral design provides compact but efficient freezing for Praxair's customer DESCO...
download PDF
Praxair Certified Rebuilt Freezer Program Boosts Production At Channel Seafood
Praxair, Inc. (NYSE:PXS) announced today that Channel Seafood is one of the first customers to take advantage of Praxair's new Certified Rebuilt Freezer Program...
read more
Praxair Certified Rebuilt Freezer Program Boosts Production At Channel Seafood
Praxair, Inc. (NYSE:PXS) announced today that Channel Seafood is one of the first customers to take advantage of Praxair's new Certified Rebuilt Freezer Program. The product line offers rebuilt cryogenic freezer equipment and was announced by Praxair Food Technologies earlier this year. This is the first liquid nitrogen freezer for Channel Seafood. The cryogenic freezer system was installed in August and immediately upon start-up yielded a better-than-expected production rate for a new product line that the company produces for one of its key customers.
"Praxair really came through for us," comments Channel Seafood's John Roberts, general manager. "We had to rapidly get into the new production to meet the needs of our customer. Praxair not only exceeded our expectation for the necessary production rate but got the system delivered and installed ahead of schedule." The initial response from Channel's customer was very positive. "We were not able to meet our customer's needs without the cryogenic system. I'm surprised we had never tried cryogenics before," concluded Roberts. "Our client is very pleased."
Praxair is the largest industrial gases company in North and South America, and one of the largest worldwide, with 2001 sales of $5.1 billion. The company produces, sells and distributes atmospheric and process gases, and high-performance surface coatings. Praxair products, services and technologies bring productivity and environmental benefits to a wide variety of industries, including aerospace, chemicals, food and beverage, electronics, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, metals and others.