Pet Food Processing - January 2025 - 26

PLANT PROFILE
- and room for more - but to have built-in efficiencies
through its vertical production integration and automated
systems. Bringing the entire production process under
one roof has allowed Muenster to achieve cost savings,
food safety and quality benefits.
At the front end of the facility, after receiving, is the
production kitchen where 40- to 60-lb blocks of frozen
protein are ground and blended with additional ingredients
- vegetables, premix vitamins and minerals. Many
of the complete-and-balanced formulations contain
multiple proteins and a variety of additional ingredients
in order to reach the desired nutritional value. After
mixing, the product is then formed into pellets, nuggets,
meatballs or patties, flash frozen and then stored in the
blast freezer until freeze-drying.
Next, product
is transferred onto trays and autoloaded
into freeze drying carts - 42 trays per cart. In
many freeze-drying plants, loading the carts is a manual
process - Muenster invested in automatic loaders to
streamline operations and reduce labor.
Ten carts are moved into any of the 15 Parker Freeze
Dry dryers for the 12- to 18-hour drying cycle. The company
was already familiar with Parker dryers after using
them in its Muenster operation.
" We went with the next generation of energy efficient
Parker because we already knew how to operate them.
And, there was a lead-time factor, " Felderhoff said. " At
the time we were equipping the plant, there was an
18-month lead time for freeze dryers - the Parker systems
only needed a 6-month lead time. "
The freeze-drying cycles, which can be monitored by
the plant manager and production supervisors in the
operations room, are automatically set based on proprietary
programming Muenster developed and don't require
in-person surveillance.
After freeze drying, product is stored in totes or super
sacks in a freezer until packaging. The totes or super
sacks are loaded automatically into a hopper and conveyed
into a multi-head scale bucket for automatic bag
filling. The plant features two packaging lines - one for
smaller sizes between 1 oz and 20 oz, and the other for
larger products, 5 lbs or larger. After packaging, products
are conveyed through a check weigher and X-ray
before moving to a robotic case packer and palletizer.
" Automation often gets a bad name. It actually makes
the work more efficient and makes employees better at
their jobs, " Felderhoff said. " We're making jobs better,
easier, safer, effective and efficient. "
Top: Muenster Milling's new state-of-the-art plant in
Denton, Texas, features 15 Parker Freeze Dry commercial
freeze dryers. Bottom: A robotic palletizer helps load finished
product, saving on the need for additional labor.
Captured Moments by Deanna
26 PET FOOD PROCESSING | Jan-Feb 2025 | www.petfoodprocessing.net
http://www.petfoodprocessing.net
Pet Food Processing - January 2025

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