Positively impacting cooling during milk production with SWEP brazed plate heat exchangers

Grupo Cabo Verde – Fazenda Santa Luzia

Fazenda Santa Luzia, a farm in Passos/MG, is one of the main players in the production of pasture milk in Brazil. The farm belongs to Grupo Cabo Verde, a group whose origins date back to 1943 when Mr. João Coelho Filho acquired the property.

Fazenda Santa Luzia has an average of 2,000 lactating cows, with a daily production output of 45,000 liters of milk. Their production system is based in irrigated pastures, rotated, using waste for fertilization and biodigesters for production of electricity.

Currently, Grupo Cabo Verde is managed by Mr. José Coelho Filho and his family, who have made the business one of the ten largest milk producers in Brazil.  In addition to milk, the group also has other agriculturally related activities that they are part of such as cattle raising, coffee, swine, corn, soy, etc.

 

Challenges in milk cooling

One of the measures with the greatest impact on milk quality and on guaranteeing bacterial control is the cooling of the product immediately after milking. The milk cooling temperature should be 4°C (39°F). Instant cooling is a much-needed aspect in the milk production industry, as it is considered a very cost-effective, energy saving solution.  SWEP brazed plate heat exchangers tend to be an ideal choice for applications where the solution calls for energy efficient, economical heat transfer solutions. For this case, SWEP’s efficiency single-circuit evaporator P250AS model was used. The P250AS is specially developed for air- and water-cooled reversible chiller applications. Its large ports and asymmetric plate design deliver an effective operating range of 80-250 kW. SWEP’s AsyMatrix® plate pattern improves heat transfer while reducing water pressure drop and refrigerant charge.

The Körper, Engmilk and SWEP partnership

SWEP was honored to collaborate with Körper and Engmilk to develop a solution that made it possible to optimize the milk cooling process, ensuring energy efficiency, speed, and product quality. The equipment that was originally used to cool the milk worked with 12 compressors and now, the chiller solution developed through this new partnership, works with only 4 units.

Körper is a Brazilian company that stands out in the industrial water-cooling systems market, supplying Chillers, Dry Coolers, Open and Closed-Circuit Cooling Towers, as well as integrated solutions to the process. With the mission of manufacturing equipment with a focus on industrial technology, but also environmentally friendly with low consumption of water and electricity, Körper has relied on SWEP for years to supply brazed plate heat exchangers, thus adding even more efficiency in many of their systems.

EngMilk, founded by Marcos Moretti and Maycoln Gervazio, is a company with 25 years of expertise in the milk market specializing in instant milk cooling systems that deliver efficiency, profitability with innovation, and technology to the producer.

SWEP is proud to partner with all these companies to help provide the efficient, cooling solution needed in the milk production process.  We are looking forward to more opportunities like these to keep driving our commitment to ‘Challenge Efficiency’ in all we do.

 

 

In the process industry, SWEP brazed plate heat exchangers are used for heating, cooling, and various steam applications and can operate in plant equipment and dedicated auxiliary systems in process industries such as pharmaceutics, food & beverage, chemical, petrochemical, polymer, and pulp & paper.  Find out more about our range of brazed plate heat exchangers for industrial type applications by clicking here.