An unprecedented water-recycling system for washing, rinsing and drying of thermal insulated containers within the Food Industry

ended

The cleaning thermic insulated containers used for safe and efficient transportation of temperature-controlled goods is a crucial step in food operations. It requires a high degree of cleanliness and drying efficiency to ensure the hygienic conditions for safe product transportation. Nowadays, several methods have been proposed to clean insulated containers but considered technically limited. They can only wash efficiently outside and not inside of the box which compromises the hygienic conditions. And, when they do, the drying step is often neglected leaving biological hazard into the containers. Moreover, they are time consuming, expensive (requires person to operate) and face an important issue of excess water usage (over 46L per container). The sanitizing process also currently requires hot water (65°C) to remove bacteria which further increases cost and energy use. Driven by the increasing concern of supermarket retailers, LVP Engineering & Constructions has designed and developed Optainer: An automatic water-recycling Wash&Dry station for insulated containers sanitation. Our innovative recycling system will reduce over 97% of water consumption. It will increase productivity by 60% disposing of 40 containers per hours vs 20 with standard solutions and reduce energy consumption with no need of heating water for sanitation. It will fully answer supermarket retailers’ specification for a more efficient, economic, easily to operate, safer and water efficient solution to insulated container sanitation. Since 2005, our company has been developing standard automatic washing installation for insulated containers with an important German retailer throughout the EU. Well aware of the need, our Optainer project has the potential to extend our customer portfolio and, thus, increase our revenue. We expect from Optainer commercialisation an accumulated turnover of €30 million with €10.2 million accumulated profit (ROI of 3.2) and foresee to create 21 new jobs by 2026.