Innovative was excited to complete and turn over a sausage facility to our service department in August. The commissioning team had the nearly 2,000-horsepower processing plant up and running in just six days!  This project is a great example of how our engineering, construction, and commissioning teams work together exceed expectations in our design-build operation.

The client’s facility is a ready-to-eat, value-added plant. From the facility in Union City, Tennessee, sausage patties are shipped all over North America and Canada.

We were awarded the project in May of 2017 with RFW Construction Group. Engineers immediately started on the design process and were on site starting glycol and underground work last summer.

The project consisted of 10 Innovative penthouses, 16 Guntner evaporators with Innovative valve stations, two Evapco critical process air units, four Frick screw compressors, three Frick evaporator condensers and more.

The system has a full ePSM program; Innovative team members trained the staff on the PSM program. It has an Allen-Bradley PLC control microprocessor that enables HMI graphics with a full 3D animated system. The advanced technology offers multiple levels of alarms, including texting and email.

The penthouses were set in November and we went into full construction after that. Two of the cooler penthouses are convertible, meaning the client has the option to convert cooler space to freezer later on if they wish.

The total capacity of the facility is 1,854 horsepower and it has a total ammonia charge of 23,000 pounds. A unique aspect of the project was the blast freezing pallets. We were freezing more than half a million pounds of sausage at a time!

Here at Innovative, we love being able to help customers deliver their best product possible! Did you know that a faster freezing time reduces the chance of freezer burn? Faster freezing times allow for longer product shelf lives.

During the project, western Tennessee was extremely rainy. The inclement weather made the project more difficult at all levels of construction, but that didn’t stop our production! Innovative still finished the project on time.

In August, we were extremely pleased with how smoothly the plant’s start-up went. The commissioning team had the plant up and running in just 6 days! They wouldn’t have been able to do their job as successfully without our engineering and construction team doing such a great job on the front end of the contract. Kudos to everyone involved!

The client has the ability to expand their refrigeration in the future by 100 percent. We can’t wait to work with them again.