Murdy announced the appointment of senior vice president Chuck Sherman to head up the initiative within Comfort Systems USA. Sherman leads Comfort Systems USA’s Business Solutions Group.

According to Sherman, Comfort Systems USA looks closely at a range of subjects, including placement of air intake vents, filtering technology, equipment room access, isolation of mailroom air-handling systems, and service technician background screening.

Publication date: 12/03/2001

Schools Use Natural Gas To Cut Costs

A Dutch specialist in fish preparation is using advanced freezing technology to significantly expand its freezing capacity. The company is Neerlandia Urk. The technology is represented by Frigoscandia Equipment’s Advantec™ impingement freezer.

The expansion of freezing capacity is taking the fish specialist from 500 metric tons per year to 50 metric tons per week. There are additional benefits, such as reduced product weight loss and a production area 40% smaller than originally planned. Neerlandia has been growing ever since the company was founded 28 years ago. “In 1974, our annual sales already totaled about 5 million guilders,” recalls managing director Albert Romkes, who cited annual sales of 30 million guilders in 1999. Neerlandia is adopting new technology, in the form of two high-tech freezers from Frigoscandia Equipment.

“The new plant’s capacity gives us the opportunity to increase our production five- to seven-fold,” said Romkes. “With the new freezers we can process up to 50 metric tons of fillets per week, and/or 20 metric tons of raw produce or 10 metric tons of fillets per day.”

He continued, “It took us almost a year to select the plant concept best suited to our needs. Of great importance to us were the practical tests with a number of fish varieties conducted by the team of experts from Frigoscandia Equipment here at our premises in Urk.

“The results were so promising that we continued the tests at Frigoscandia Equipment in Sweden. The outstanding results ultimately proved to be the decisive factor.”

The freezer technology incorporates impingement airflow technology, originally developed in 1995 by Frigoscandia for its flat product freezer, which was designed to meet the needs of the hamburger industry.

According to the manufacturer, the unit offered the speed and product quality of cryogenic systems at half the cost. It said the initial impingement technology has already been proven in more than 200 freezer and chiller modules worldwide. Applications include hamburger patties, fish fillets, and other flat products.

The much shorter freezing times, in turn, reduce the loss of fluid and improve the quality of frozen products, said the company. Also, the freezer takes up less space than a conventional freezer, thus reducing building costs.

“We were able to reduce the originally planned production area by 40%,” commented Romkes. “For us that means a saving of more than 200,000 guilders.”

Neerlandia operates the freezer with an LVS FrigoPak® ammonia refrigeration unit, also from Frigoscandia. LVS stands for low-volume system, reflecting the fact that the unit requires 50% of the ammonia quantity used in conventional units.

Publication date: 12/03/2001