02 JUL 2007
Engro Foods milk processing plant comes on stream in Pakistan.
GEA TDS has recently completed a Euro 3 million milk processing plant for Engro Foods in Pakistan. It is one of the biggest plants of its kind in Pakistan and the first ever in the Sahiwal region. The commissioning of the plant was completed in just 2 months and operation started by end December 2007.
The plant supplies the region around Sahiwal with 250,000 litres of low fat milk a day,
that’s 1 million servings, and 10 million servings of Tarang (tea whitener). The plant provides
a processing outlet for the local farmers who rear dairy herds of cows and, especially in the smaller farms, buffalo. The Engro plant also contributes to the local economy by employing some 200 people throughout the factory.
The GEA TDS project was to supply equipment and engineering services throughout the process. This included milk reception; milk processing; UHT processing; powder mixing; cream handling and processing; Clean in Place (CIP) equipment such as trucks, process
and filling machines; detailed engineering and project management; automation for both the process and CIP equipment; and commissioning.
Raw milk reception handles up to 40,000 lit/hr of both cow (20%) and buffalo (80%) milk from the surrounding region’s farmers cooling it from approximately 15˚C to 4˚C for storage in the two 125m3 storage tanks.
The process can pasteurize milk to 85˚C at the rate of 25,000 lit/hr and includes milk clarification and skimming; standardisation for milk, cream, SNF and butteroil; butteroil dosing; a refurbished homogeniser; and degassing. Pasteurised milk is stored in 5 tanks each holding up to 75m3. Cream is pasteurised separately at a temperature of 95˚C at a rate of up to 3,500 lit/hr. UHT equipment, with indirect heating and cooling via heat exchangers, can handle up to 21,000 lit/hr.
The CIP system covers the whole process from the delivery trucks through to the filling machines. Acid and caustic concentrates are stored on site in two tanks each with
a capacity of 15m3.
The whole process is controlled using PLCs supplied by Allen Bradley. PLCs are located in cooled cabinets installed on the base-frame unit of each module. All were delivered wired and I/O tested.
GEA TDS was involved in the project right from the start consulting with Engro on the mechanical design and creating the initial engineering drawings. Tuchenhagen staff supervised the installation and commissioning to ensure that the work was completed to meet the client’s demanding time schedule.
Although Engro has only been in the food and dairy sector since 2006 the company has already carved out a significant market share and is growing quickly. The company is planning to expand its dairy processing still further and to move into the processing of dairy whitener and ice cream. In such a short time it’s already well on the way to achieving its goal to be one of the biggest players in Pakistan’s food industry.
Published: 11 July 2008