For the construction of its new dairy in Bergen, Norway, TINE has opted to purchase process technology from the Krones family of companies. The new plant supplies the entire region with fresh milk, cream, and fruit juices. Although the plant’s daily production capacity of 300,000 liters is relatively small, this facility is the most modern of the company’s 32 plants.
Milkron is the Krones Group’s dairy expert. Based near Hannover, Germany, it has been founded in 2016, but its people had decades of experience in the dairy industry to draw from. ‘This expertise was a deciding factor for us. Milkron knew our industry and had exactly the right connections to build our new dairy,’ concludes Mårten Haukjem, manager of the dairy plant in Bergen.
Milkron took care of all planning and execution for the process technology – from milk receiving to processing and storage of the finished products to their transfer to the filler. Milkron continually had experts from Hannover on site in Bergen coordinating the entire construction site – including the subcontractors – and making sure that delivery, assembly, installation, and startup of the equipment went like clockwork. The project required a considerable amount of material: Milkron installed more than 15 kilometers of stainless steel pipe to carry milk, finished product, water, and heat transfer media between the 54 tanks.
Milkron brought other Krones subsidiaries on board for equipping the dairy with the necessary process technology:
- HST delivered the homogenizer, which is used to partially homogenize 8,000 liters of fresh milk per hour at a pressure of 200 bar.
- Evoguard supplied almost all of the valves – 1,107 in all. What made this delivery special is that the delivery included twelve valve manifolds of various sizes which Evoguard designed and built precisely to TINE’s specifications.
- For the process control system, TINE wanted an automation solution that was both state-of-the-art and energy efficient – and they chose Botec F1 from Syskron. The system monitors and controls the entire production process. In addition, TINE’s existing IT environment was fully integrated and interfaces were established to almost all systems.
- Parent company Krones collaborated with TINE to design a complete energy concept for the new dairy plant, using a three-stage system comprising heat pumps and cooling units. The heart of the system is a hybrid high-temperature heat pump that can generate very high temperatures with a relatively low level of pressure.
This was the first time TINE had entrusted the Krones Group with the entire range of process technology – and Mårten Haukjem is more than satisfied with the results. ‘One of the reasons we chose Krones is that they are a large group with a lot of experience. We always felt good about it and consistently felt that we had made the right choice.’
