World meat industry news

End of last year the pig slaughter and processing entity Agroeco-Yug signed a contract with the technology group GEA for the supply, installation and commissioning of an extensively cooling system.

This plant will be built in the Voronezh region and will be one of Russia’s largest businesses for the slaughter and processing of pigs. The slaughter line’s processing rate will be 600 pigs per hour. Commissioning has been planned for the year 2020.

The Agroeco group, holding of Agroeco-Yug, is the largest pig farming enterprise in the Voronezh Region. The seven districts in the region contain 11 successfully operating, modern pig farms, their own genetics and selection centre, as well as a high-tech feed mixing plant with an elevator.

Agroeco-Yug has enforced stringent requirements on the suppliers of its equipment. The cornerstone for best product quality should be laid with state-of-the-art equipment and advanced technologies. A detailed design of all the systems and equipment for the future business is currently being drawn up.

The GEA cooling system is an energy-efficient, reliable and fully-automated exothermal refrigeration unit using NH3 and CO2. This includes for example compression equipment, evaporative condensers, portioning equipment, air coolers and blast freezers.

The NH3 circuit’s refrigerative capacity is 6,500 kW at T0=-11 and a further 6,500 kW at T0=-14. To reduce the losses incurred in transforming electricity, as well as in the cost of constructing the transformer substation, it was decided that high-voltage motors (10 kV) will be installed on the compressor units for the NH3 circuit. For the receptacles of the -44 and -29 circuit, CO2 is used as the working substance, whereas for medium-temperature receptacles, an aqueous solution of propylene glycol, cooled to -8°C, is used.