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| Carolina Food Processors, Inc.
Large Scale DuctSox® Installation Speeds Production at One of the World's
Largest Meat Packing Plants
| TAR HEEL, NC - A subsidiary of the Smithfield Packing Company, renowned producer of premium quality hams and other pork products, Carolina Food Processors. Inc., Tar Heel, North Carolina, operates one of the largest meat packing facilities of its type in the world. Within the approximately one million sq. ft. structure, hogs are processed into prime cuts for global distribution. The plant employs more than a third of Smithfield's 11,000 employees. The North Carolina plant is responsible for nearly $1 billion of the parent company's annual $2.2 billion sales. |  |
Reliable plant cooling is obviously a top priority at the USDA/FDA regulated North Carolina facility. When the decision was made to ramp up the plant's production, additional hog coolers were specified to enable the processing of at least 26,000 carcasses per day. To handle the increased volume, it was necessary to improve the efficiency of the coolers' air dispersion system.
The comfort of employees who work in one of the large cool environment meat cutting areas was also a key concern. The elimination of uneven temperatures and cold drafts was targeted as the best way to ensure product quality -- rapidly moving pockets of too cool air cause meat dehydration -- and employee discomfort.
Phil Sabin, Director of Engineering, and his project team evaluated the requirements of both areas and considered several options. The sheer size of the work areas presented a major challenge, as did the plant's quality control requirements for precise, uniform temperatures.Optimum temperatures are 42° in the cutting room and 34° in the storage coolers. The decision was ultimately made to install an innovative fabric air dispersion system -- Low-Throw Series DuctSox®.
According to Danny Trent, Carolina Food Processors' utilities supervisor, with conventional air handling systems, sharp streams of refrigerated air are blown from strategically-placed units, and temperature variations are common. These fluctuating temperatures are not only uncomfortable for employees, they can diminish product quality. Random pockets of high velocity air that are either too cold, causing dehydration or too hot, causing spoilage can significantly diminish product quality. Also, workers feel 15° to 20° warmer.
DuctSox® significantly reduce temperature variations and drafts because their air permeable fabric releases conditioned air at a velocity of only 8 to 10 cfm. The air movement is so gentle as to be virtually undetectable. As a result, workers in refrigerated plants feel up to 15° to 20° warmer, even though the required overall temperature remains constant.
Trent also notes that one of the most appreciated benefits provided by DuctSox®, aside from comfort and temperature consistency, is their contribution to air quality and plant sanitation -- especially important in the ham boning room. In meat cutting operations, meat fibers and other debris can be borne aloft by air currents and carried into the air distribution system, diminishing the quality of air for both workers and products. By acting as a back-up for the plant's air filtration system -- DuctSox® filter airborne particulate as small as 1 - 5 microns from the dispersed air -- "they keep everything cleaner," says Trent.
When the installation was complete, more than five miles of Low-Throw DuctSox® were in place --about four miles in the hog cooler rooms and one mile in the cutting area. |
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