Fuel inefficiency frozen out at Findus

The installation of the proven Maxsys Fuel System at the Benton Lane, Newcastle plant of Findus has reduced the natural gas consumed by its three boilers by 6.6%

This substantial saving will allow the company to recoup the outlay on its investment within an impressively brief 12 month period.

Findus is a household name in frozen food.

Few can claim never to have experienced its food ranges such as its popular French bread pizzas and crispy pancakes.

Apparently Findus manufactures three crispy pancakes every second, and over the past 30 years has produced more than 2.1 billion - enough to stretch around the world six times! The plant on Tyne and Wear employs 400 people and frozen food manufacture is its core business.

To provide steam generation for both processes and heating, the busy plant uses three Danks MOD125 Metric boilers all running with Saacke CG40-4960 burners.

Fuelled by natural gas, until recently annual consumption stood at approximately 2.4 million cubic metres.

"We are continuously looking at ways to improve on both our fuels costs and environmental impact," says Kevin Prior at Findus: "We have an energy team on site and we look at many different ways of saving energy from more efficient practices through to the possibility of using technology such as wind turbines".

Maxsys contacted Findus to describe the service and benefits on offer through the adoption of the Maxsys Fuel System, a patented fuel treatment system that improves combustion by applying a finely calibrated magnetic field directly to the fuel.

There are no moving parts and the units are maintenance-free.

"The Fuel System looked to be a 'win/win' situation, where this proven technology offered a saving of at least 5% typically" says Mr Prior; "As it turns out, trials and calculations conducted before and after the installation of the Fuel System concluded that we had gained a 6.6% reduction in gas consumption.

Naturally we are delighted with this outcome and it will enable us to achieve payback within 12 months.

The reduction in CO2 output is also welcome.

The site is constantly seeking ways to reduce our environmental impact as part of our Climate Change Levy agreement".

Mr Prior was also impressed with the level of service provided by Maxsys, which provided a team of engineers to undertake testing and monitoring of the installation.

"Maxsys proved excellent throughout the entire project, from the initial concept stage right through to the installation, which was completed ahead of schedule" he says: "They also followed up with a final report and conclusions".

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