CUSTOMER
Gunnar Dafgård AB, Källby, Sweden. The company is Sweden’s largest family business within the food industry. Frozen and chilled products for food, catered foods and consumer markets are produced and distributed from here. Amongst other products, Gunnar Dafgård AB manufactures the well-known Swedish meatballs.
PROBLEM / OBJECTIVE
Dafgård AB initially contacted Absolent in 2002. Back then they had tried several other types of filters with poor results. Our mission was to filter the air from the pancake line in their production. An ODR 3000 (today A•smoke40) was installed, which has successfully filtered the air since. Because the company was very pleased with this installation, it was natural that they turned to Absolent when a new meatball line was to be added to the production area. Absolent’s challenge was to get rid of the grease in the air and reduce the
smell from the manufacturing process.
SOLUTION
After careful evaluation and planning in true Absolent spirit an ODR 6000 and two ODR 2000 (today A•smoke80TF and A•smoke20) were installed. The filter units worked well for many years. In 2010, Dafgård chose to replace the ODR 6000 filter unit with an improved filter model made from stainless steel, the A•smoke40FOOD. A unique filter, specifically designed by Absolent for Dafgård to handle the fats solidifying from the process. The filter unit was installed with uniquely designed filter cassettes and a custom solution to prevent the fats from solidifying in the bottom section. Initially three of these units were taken into operation and during that same summer Dafgård expanded their meatball production and installed three more units. Currently Dafgårds has 9 of the A•smoke40FOOD units for everything from baccon microwaving lines, meatball manufacturing lines, vegetarian frying lines to chicken frying lines. The A•smokeFOOD solution is working well and can withstand the tough conditions from the food process lines.
RESULTS
The Absolent filter units installed at Dafgård did not require any attention at all during the first 1-2 years of operation, which naturally resulted in lower maintenance costs. Additionally, for Dafgård, the innovative filtration process turns solidifying fats into profit since it is possible to gather and resell to farmers. Dafgård is very pleased with the filtration which has resulted in a clean working environment and environmentally conscious disposal of the solidified fats. The next step of the journey for Dafgårds was to connect the filtered process air to the general ventilation system to make use of the access heat from the process and the success has been up and running for some years now. It is the right way to go for a company with the aim for a sustainable future.