Storage in prepared pet food production

The products used are fed from hoppers, and coarsely ground to the desired texture. To facilitate further processing, the ground meat is cooked in a continuous cooker with live steam at an appropriate temperature. The meat mixture is then blended with other ingredients such as cereal grains, vitamins, and minerals, from their respective hoppers/grinders or storage vessels, and carefully delivered together in the correct proportions for mixing and packing. Dry and semi-moist foods are usually heated so that the mixture will partially thicken the starch present (‘dextrinisation’).

Level control in the hoppers is achieved with OPTISWITCH capacitive probes, to provide high and low alarms even in relatively dry materials. The flow of live steam to cook the meat can be measured and controlled with the OPTISWIRL vortex flowmeter. The OPTIMASS Coriolis mass flowmeter finally measures and signals the mass flow rate of the cooked meat into the mixing tank. Based on the improved functionality of the OPTIMASS Coriolis meters by KROHNE, it is possible to switch from the conventional batch processes to continuous inline processes. Even high viscous products like grinded meat can be measured inline by OPTIMASS Coriolis flowmeters.