Hubbard nets seafood solution with KJ Refrigeration the West of England food industry specialists

Hubbard Products, the UK's leading designer and manufacturer of bespoke industrial freezing systems have completed a large-scale industrial seafood processing solution for KJ Refrigeration of Barnstaple. The installation at Coombe Fisheries, Barnstaple, one of the Southwest's largest fish processing and exporting businesses doubles its capacity for processing, packing, freezing and storing. Coombe Fisheries exports approximately 75% of its production and freezing and storing stock are an essential processing requirement. Produce is predominantly shellfish, focusing on scallops, whelks and a range of cephalopods destined for consumption throughout western Europe.

The high-performance refrigeration equipment is housed in a £4 million; 21,000 square foot purpose-built extension and serves newly installed facilities. These include a holding freezer (-20°C), a 157m³ blast freezer (-25°C), two separate 262m³ blast freezers (-25°C), a Helix Spiral Freezer, Hybrid Tunnel & Contact Freezer and a HT Finishing Freezer (all -40°C).

KJ Refrigeration specialise in cooling for food processing and industrial applications. The two-year project was overseen by managing director Kevin Jones, who explains; "Our customer is one of the UK's largest processors of seafood for wholesale exporting across Europe. The need is to freeze fresh products quickly while remaining environmentally sound. And, to have total control in matching the freezing duty to fluctuating volumes of product within the processing lines in an energy-efficient manner was paramount. This was more than an installation of off-the-shelf packaged condensing units. The need for a collaborative approach with a single manufacturer with the capability to design the correct equipment and to create bespoke software to manage the running of the equipment was the only way forward for this sophisticated requirement."

The need to balance refrigeration reliability and running cost with an almost instantaneous response to cooling requirement and the maintenance of production quality are part of Hubbard's approach to industrial process refrigeration and especially to the seafood sector. The company boasts a well-proven track record in sustainable refrigeration. Hubbard was the first Carbon Trust ETL qualifying manufacturer of cellar cooling equipment in 2005 and most recently have been accredited with Triple 'E' approval for Irish businesses.

Working with KJ Refrigeration, Hubbard created a refrigeration plant schedule consisting of
- A twin installation of two Zanotti vertical discharge external housed packaged equipment to service the holding freezer, each unit providing cooling capacity of 28.5Kw
- A single Zanotti vertical discharge pack to service the 1600m³ packing area
- Two twin semi-hermetic internal screw compressor packs to service the two 262m³ blast freezers with a combined duty of 230Kw
- Two twin semi hermetic screw compressor packs, externally housed with economisers and sub coolers, including receiver, control panel and weatherproof housing to service the Spiral Freezer with a duty of 199Kw and Contact Freezer (Crust freezer) with a duty of 90Kw
- Inverter compressors were specified to ensure cost-efficiency through energy consumption and speed of response to production requirements

Kevin Jones continues; "Coombe Fisheries and KJ Refrigeration have a long-standing relationship of over 30 years, and we are pleased to still be supplying a growing company in a globally competitive market place. Coombe Fisheries is supported by the EU, to develop a sustainable business model, to act as peer leaders and to reduce their carbon footprint through energy-efficiency. As refrigeration consumed almost 25% of the overall project budget, it was a guiding principle that the chosen manufacturer could demonstrate knowledge of food-processing requirements. Hubbard's expertise was immediately a valuable addition to the project team. The writing and debugging of bespoke plant management software ensured that Coombe Fisheries were involved in the fine-tuning of the refrigeration plant and equipment. A generic software package could only deliver average performance rather than a Coombe Fisheries specific solution."

James Spear, managing director Coombe Fisheries adds, "This is a project that we started late in 2011 and completed at the end of 2014. The development will give us the added capacity to build our export and domestic markets. Taking fish from the open market, processing, freezing and delivering across Europe. Having a reliable and trusted supplier like KJ Refrigeration who in turn have an excellent partnering relationship with Hubbard Products, an international manufacturer themselves, encourages us to believe we have achieved an industry leading processing plant. That can only be good for Coombe Fisheries, the South West and for the UK as a whole."