The EasiHeat steam-to-hot-water system provides crucial hot water for staff at the company’s production facility at Manton Wood in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. The site employs up to 2,000 people, who produce 3.5 million packs of handmade sandwiches, baguettes and wraps each week. Staff must adhere to a rigorous daily hand-washing regime, before they start work, after every break and every time they change from using one type of filling to another due to the risk cross-contamination poses to allergy sufferers.

EasiHeat is based around a compact plate heat exchanger and provides instantaneous hot water at constant temperatures. Because it does not store water like a traditional shell-and-tube storage calorifier, which must store water at 60°C or higher to aid the prevention of Legionella growth, less energy is needed to heat the water. This enabled the Manton Wood site to reduce its annual gas bill by £30,000.

Further savings will be achieved by reduced maintenance costs. Greencore’s two calorifiers needed to be stripped down regularly for insurance inspections, a task that typically took several days. The EasiHeat system does not need dismantling for insurance inspections, saving substantial time and maintenance costs.

Greencore Food to Go has included the EasiHeat in its 24-7 priority response Service Contract with Spirax Sarco. This guarantees the company access to Spirax Sarco’s experienced engineers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year via a dedicated helpline. In the event a problem cannot be resolved over the telephone, a Spirax Sarco engineer will visit the site within 24 hours.

“Hand washing is crucial in a food factory and we have to ensure that hot water is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” explains Chris Bassett, Services Engineering Manager at Greencore Food to Go. “For this reason we also hold critical spare parts at the site, so if there is a problem we can get the hot water system operational again as soon as possible,” he adds.

Having worked with Spirax Sarco before, Mr Bassett says the company was the obvious choice for this project. “Spirax Sarco is the world leader in steam technology and its products always deliver. From conception through to installation, the technical support and advice we have received from Spirax Sarco on this project, and the interaction between Spirax Sarco, ourselves and the third party contractor used for the installation, has been second to none. I can’t fault a thing and would always recommend and use them for any steam project.”

http://www2.spiraxsarco.com/easiheat/