Moy Park Grantham

17th July 2018 — Moy Park

Babcock Wanson has completed a project for the design, construction, erection and commissioning of a Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser at Moy Park’s Grantham, Lincolnshire, facility to provide an effective odour abatement solution for the sites frying and oven based cooking processes.

An Odour Abatement Solution

One of Europe's leading food companies, Moy Park specialises in fresh poultry and complementary convenience food products. Its Grantham premises is a large further processing site for breaded and ready to eat produce featuring six production lines. Both frying and oven cooking methods are used at the site, which has grown rapidly over recent years.

With this growth has come the need for improved odour abatement, especially important because of the site’s location close to the town centre.

Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser

A customer of Babcock Wanson for more than 30 years, Moy Park turned to the company for an effective solution.

After a detailed review with the site engineering team, Babcock Wanson recommended replacing the existing Catalytic Thermal Oxidisers with a more effective Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser capable of treating the complete cooking exhaust stream irrespective of the process heat load, an important feature in the fast moving food industry. The exhaust air from the cooking processes is fed through a heated matrix of specialist ceramic honeycombs. It enters the Oxidiser at around 60°C and is heated to 850°C by the ceramics, with a small burner adding the final heat to get the stream to full oxidation temperature. The exhaust stream is treated by passing it through 3 towers which operate on a fixed rotation thereby ensuring a constant treatment profile. The clean, odour free air is then released to atmosphere.

An almost unique project in the food industry, the installation has proven to be very reliable with the bare minimum of maintenance or cleaning requirements to meet it’s ‘round the clock duties. Installation was completed using much of the sites existing ductwork to help minimise disruption to Moy Park’s busy schedule.

The Result

The new Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser has proven to be ideal for Moy Park as it allows for up to 25,000 Nm3/h of cooking exhaust to be treated with the minimum of natural gas input. It is completely automatic which means production lines can be switched on or off to meet production requirements without having to make adjustments to the Oxidiser settings. Furthermore Babcock Wanson have designed a secondary heat recovery system which will provide up to 200kW of hot water from the clean exhaust air, thereby increasing the overall efficiency of the system and reducing overall site gas demand.

This is the most recent work undertaken by Babcock Wanson for Moy Park. Previous projects have included the installation of Thermal Fluid Heaters, which are Moy Parks’ prime equipment for high temperature process heating.

Customer Testimonials

 — Loucas Antoniou, Engineering Manager at Bakkavor Meals London

“The Thermal Oxidiser is the most efficient way of removing any smells and it’s also very straightforward to use. We have been a customer of Babcock Wanson for many years and have always enjoyed a good service.”

 — Carbon Trust Annual Report 2009/10

“A major carbon footprint reduction will be achieved when the scheme currently in progress to change the main boiler fuel from heating oil to gas is completed in summer 2010. This £900k project will reduce our carbon emissions via energy usage by around 15% by removing the need to use heavy fuel oil, as the new boiler plant will use natural gas as its main fuel source.”

 — Webster & Horsfall

“What we hadn’t expected initially though is the level of control the new system provides us with; it’s amazing. It alerts us to any potential issues, is easy to maintain (no annual statutory inspection is required) and is quick to respond. All that and it doesn’t take up much room.”

 — Peter Connolly, Production Engineer at Vacu-Lug

“The ESM 2000 installation, together with an ongoing programme of process plant lagging and steam trap maintenance, has enabled us to significantly reduce our gas usage and cushion the company against rising gas prices.”

 — Dave Scrivens, Facilities Manager at Plastic Omnium

“Babcock Wanson’s expertise and ability to provide a whole package made them the leading contender for this project. On further investigation, their proposal was also commercially viable, which sealed the deal.”

 — Denis Kelly, Engineering & Construction Manager at Stolthaven Dagenham

“The Thermal Fluid Heaters themselves were ideal for this project as they are based on mature technology and are well proven in the field. They are robust and also require very little maintenance.”

 — Ian McQuarrie, Engineering Manager at Puredrive

“During my three years here, the Steam Generators and Thermal Fluid Heaters have worked flawlessly. Babcock Wanson carries a good name in the business for both quality and equipment longevity. Their knowledge, company wide, is exceptional and the whole package from installation through to service is managed professionally.”

 — Jason Hall, J&A Young Engineering Manager

“We had estimated our steam requirements, but Babcock Wanson had the experience to understand that we had underestimated this. In fact, the erratic nature of the steam loads would have been impossible to meet under our existing spec. Babcock Wanson was able to identify this as well as provide a very energy efficient solution with a number of enhanced features”.

 — Lee Bullen, Corrugated Services Manager at Board24

“It’s running very well, both easy to use and efficient. The service from Babcock Wanson has also been very good.”

 — Peter Shrimpton, Engineering Projects Manager at Bridgnorth Aluminium Ltd

"We were unfamiliar with Babcock Wanson, but we’ve had no problems with it whatsoever; you simply switch it on and it works – simple as that! The service we have received from Babcock Wanson has also been great.”