AS part of a major revamp at their high-tech food factory in Paarden Eiland, St Elmo's has incorporated a new process plant for sauces that is strictly in compliance with the SABS (HACCP) 0330 guidelines.
Chaswill Process Technology, a leading process engineering company, designed and installed the state-of-the-art process plant that is being used to manufacture the sauces. These sauces are distributed not only to franchisees, but also soon to certain supermarket chains and restaurant groups nationally.
Wayne de Bruyn, the St Elmo's food factory manager says: "The new plant enables us to manufacture and fill 10 000 bottles of sauce a day. This is over and above the output for our bulk 25 litre packaging. Chaswill Process Technology, a company that has installed equipment for major players in the South African food and beverage industry, including Unilever, KWV and the Stellenbosch Farmer's Winery, customized the entire process for us".
De Bruyn explains the basic operation of the new plant: "The technology at our new sauce plant allows for a rapid cooling process that enables us to almost instantly reduce the temperature of the sauce to below the critical limit for possible bacterial growth, which is below 25 degrees Celsius. Besides the cooling technology and bottling plant we have also fitted a heat tunnel that equips us to seal and pack sauces to large supermarket standards".