Snack manufacturer increases production with new compressors

Kolak Snack Foods is a London snack food manufacturer that, having experienced an upturn in business, needed to increase its output capacity. An upgrade of its production equipment was therefore necessary, and this included its air compressors.

Kolak had several important requirements for its new compressors. It required reliability, continuity of output and no risk of contamination during process operations. To achieve this, Kolak chose to replace its existing units with Atlas Copco oil-free, rotary screw machines.

The company installed two ZT 90 FF compressors and a ZT 90 VSD FF, which provide a guaranteed supply of high-quality air. The ZT 90 FF and ZT 90 VSD FF units are 90 kW air-cooled compressors in which no oil is used in any of the mechanism that comes in contact with the air. As a result of the installation, the process air at Kolak’s London plant complies with the ISO 8573-1 (2010) CLASS 0 standard of air purity, which embraces the Class 0 industry standard. Class 0 measures all three forms of oil contamination: aerosol, vapour and liquid. The compressors supplied by Atlas Copco have been TÜV-certified for zero oil contamination.

In order to meet production demand, the plant operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, meaning that energy efficiency was also an essential consideration in the selection of new compressors.

“The Atlas Copco VSD compressor works in tandem with the base load compressors to cover all the main 7 bar plant air application duties, including heat exchanger, steam boiler and packing operations. This ensures that output is matched to demand in the most energy-efficient way, with the VSD compressor taking over any additional site load,” said Rikin Lakhani, Kolak’s director.

Each of the Atlas Copco compressors is a fully featured, total installation package - a pre-wired and pre-piped solution, ready for use out of the box. According to Atlas Copco, integrating the compressor’s IMD dryer and its variable speed drive enables the compact package to supply high-quality dry compressed air at the lowest cost.

The IMD adsorption dryer eliminates moisture before it enters the air net to ensure a reliable process and contamination-free end product. No external energy is required to dry the air and, as the dryer needs no purge air, no compressed air is wasted. The pressure drop through the dryer is minimal, which also reduces the operating cost.

Each of the Atlas-Copco compressors is also capable of providing a clean hot water supply from its cooling system, which can be used for other purposes, such as pre-heated boiler feed water or space heating, further reducing the life cycle cost if required.

Kolak also entered into a 10-year Total Care agreement with Atlas Copco for compressor system maintenance and servicing. Atlas Copco undertakes responsibility for monitoring and maintaining the installation’s performance.

“We invested in the best possible service package in order to make us futureproof,” Rikin said.