Chilling to the max maintains quality.

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Two Airmax unit coolers from Alfa Laval are helping one of Scotland's premier processors of lamb and beef increase its market share by maintaining chill rooms for lamb and beef processing at optimum temperature.

West Scottish Lamb's abattoir is, in fact, located some way south of the border in Carlisle, in a building which started life as Carlisle City Council's own abattoir. In those days, it was set up to handle the processing of 100 lambs per hour. Now, following changes made by the current management who took the business over in 2002, it processes up to 27000 lambs per week (520 per hour). In addition, the company processes 600 beef carcasses every week.

The vast majority of the meat processed by West Scottish Lamb goes for export. In the case of lamb, 90% is sent to markets around Europe while exports of beef represent 60% of the volume processed. The remainder is portioned and boned for sale to local wholesale and retail butchers all over the North of England and South-West Scotland.

Key to the success of the plant has been the installation of the two Alfa Laval AirMax unit coolers as part of an overall upgrade of the beef and lamb chill units carried out in 2007 by Carlisle Refrigeration. The specification for the installation was for the temperatures in both units to be reduced as quickly as possible in order to preserve the colour and flavour of the meat. In the case of the lamb chill unit, the temperature has to be reduced from 380C to 100C in 21 hours and in that of the beef chill to 80 C.

As David Burton, Managing Director of West Scottish Lamb explains, "With meat, the key to quality is getting the temperature reduced as quickly as possible. Carcasses flesh from slaughter have a body temperature of 380 C and they steam so it is vital to get rid of that steam and reduce the body temperature very rapidly. In the case of the lamb, drying it off quickly locks in the taste. With beef, rapid chilling makes sure the meat retains a good colour."

In David Button's view, the most important aspect of the chilling system is not merely the provision of cold air but the air throw, in other words how far the system flings the air. "Even if you have the temperature spot on," he says, "without the right air flow, you still won't get the results you want." This is precisely the problem he wanted to overcome when he contacted Carlisle Refrigeration. At that time, the only air movement in the chill units came from ceiling mounted fans which did not provide the air flow that West Scottish lamb required.

That is why, when Carlisle Refrigeration designed the new chill system for the abattoir, they opted for AirMax unit coolers from Alfa Laval for the crucial role of delivering the chilled air within the lamb and beef units. The cooler mounted on the wall of the beef handling room, for instance, delivers a massive 13.35m3 of cold air per second while its smaller counterpart in the lamb chill unit provides roughly half that volume, 6.683 m3 every second.

Combined with a new ventilation system, consisting of roof vents and ceiling-mounted fans, the Airmax unit coolers enable West Scottish Lamb to get animals from the slaughter house into refrigerated trucks in under 24 hours with maximum efficiency and product quality.

As David Burton sums it up, "The high velocity cold air pumped out by the AirMax chillers is perfect for our needs. They give us speed, accuracy and most importantly, top quality meat for our customers."

Contact Alfa Laval on tel [phone] or visit www.alfalaval.com