Solving the dirty shackle problem and optimizing cooling efficiency

By Sean Groeneveld, IWC-international agent in South Africa

During the last 6 years of being involved with IWC Undine® Technology and many installations throughout the Poultry industry, it has become clear that there are more benefits to installing UNDINE® than just water savings or hygiene improvements.

We found that besides the incredible water savings recorded on Inside / Outside bird washers in the evisceration department, most of our clients uses chill water on the OEM Inside / Outside washers to clean the birds before Air Chill. By adding an UNDINE® Retro-fit kit to the OEM Inside / Outside washer in evisceration department, combined with the chill water we achieved an instant drop in the core temperature of 2 degrees of the birds before they go into the Air Chill room.

Reducing energy costs

When looking at the refrigeration requirements of the Air Chill room and cost of running the refrigeration compressors, if you could reduce the core temperature by 2 degrees before the birds enter the Air Chill room, then the power saving is significant.

Reducing labour costs

The most attractive benefit besides water saving on a shackle washer is the labour saving. We replaced the old brush type shackle washer with UNDINE® units, reducing cross contamination, and installed UNDINE® Cooling Shackle Washers after the Air Chill room to clean the cooling shackles, reducing the cleaning staff needed, with effective zero contact high pressure cleaning.

Effective cleaning of equipment

The shackles were not 100% clean when the UNDINE® units were installed, but within 4 full cycles the 8500 shackles were clean. We tapped into the high pressure water lines, using 17 bar water pressure and 6 bar compressed air, making for very effective cleaning results.

The client was content with the very cost effective solutions.