Case Studies
Dairy Manufacture
CS016 · Food Manufacturing · Dairy Facility — Southern Australia
Case Study — CS016
Dairy Manufacture (Food Production)
Client: Dairy Facility — Southern Australia | Sector: Food Manufacturing
Situation
Our client was approached by the Dairy Facility manager. Several attempts to stop the issue of customer complaints about mould and yeast in the powdered milk packaged to sell to consumers. This level of complaints would get up to 10% of packaged goods at times.
Despite having used other means to control the issue, such as UV lights and other similar devices, there was no abatement to the infestation. This building is in the southern states of Australia.
Treatment
The end client followed treatment suggested for implementation — simply to deploy 250gm blocks of gel placed in the return air box of the air handler controlling the air in 2 × 1000 square meter manufacturing areas.
Test Methodology
- 01In-house microbiology department monitored airborne bioburden over 4 months
- 02Results graphed showing CFU per cubic meter of air over time in days
- 03SAN-AIR advised measurement locations; factory used their known vulnerable points
- 04Gel exhausted after approximately 20 days; residual effect continued for 5 more weeks
Result
- Remarkable decrease in fungal load from ~13,000 CFU to near zero within 20 days
- Musty odour that was present disappeared
- After 12 months, customer complaints decreased to near zero (from 10%)
- Residual gel action continued reducing counts for 5 weeks after gel exhausted
Conclusion
After this in-house study, the end user specified the use of SAN-AIR gel in its preventative maintenance for the air handler and discovered the system to be effective and low cost, with 6 kg of gel deployed every six months. The end user reported after 12 months that its customer complaints had decreased to near zero.
