Cross contamination eliminated: immersion chilling replaced with an Undine® solution

By Joost Hillen, representative of IWC-International in Spain and Portugal.

Water bath immersion chilling within the cooling area is nowadays an often-used method to improve the cooling capacity of the tunnel and reduce dried losses in the cooling process. The downside of this trend is that after the EV area a point of cross contamination is created, resulting in a degradation of the product in term of product quality and shelve life. Even with all parameters according to the OEM manufacturer, the water quality cannot be kept within levels that an increase of bacterial contamination on the bird is created. With the application of the Undine technology this issue can be resolved, while keeping the benefits of the immersion chilling, a great example is the following case.

Even though a big producer in the Spanish market was able to reach satisfying benefits with their immersion chilling in the cooling area in terms of cooling as well as dried loss. The final product quality remained highly problematic due to high cross contamination which occurred in the water baths of the immersion chilling system. To resolve this issue a special low pressure Undine system was develop for this producer, the track and bath were kept in place, nevertheless the water was taken out of the bath and was replaced with Undine® mixing chambers over the length of the bath.

The low-pressure cold water, which was normally used to keep water bath at level during production, was used to feed the Undine mixing chambers. Because a mist of low-pressure micro water droplets was created at various point in the bath, a cooling affect on the still warm birds was created, while preventing dried lost in the cooling area.

As a result of this Undine solution, the product quality issues were resolved while maintaining the previous results on cooling and dried lost. And a not to be underestimated very important side effect all was reached with a daily reduction of a near 100 M³ of chilled water which on itself created a return of invest of 2 months based on water savings alone.