BM Foods, holding company of the much-loved South African food brand, Mediterranean Delicacies, is the first food manufacturing company in the South African market to use a CO2 driven refrigeration system in their new, state of the art Cape Town factory.
The benefits of using CO2 is that it dramatically reduces the negative impact on the environment. There is a Global Warming Potential (GWP) status which uses a score type system to define what is detrimental to the environment; the lower the score, the better it is for the environment, in this case CO2 has an almost perfect score of 1, whereas traditional refrigeration gases currently have an astronomical (negative) GWP score of 4922!
Costas Vayanos, CEO of BM Foods is immensely proud of this ground-breaking innovation:
‘We are privileged to have a cutting-edge supplier in the field who assisted with creating this unique refrigeration technique. We are now using 100% environmentally friendly gas and as an added benefit we get free heating for all of our hot water requirements in the factory via a heat exchanger.
We no longer need electrically heated hot water cylinders in our facility.” This combined with the 30% of solar power used in the new Cape Town factory has reduced their carbon footprint significantly.
Richard Drinkrow, MD of Mainstream Refrigeration, who supplied the refrigeration system, advises that CO2 is a natural gas that is recovered from the atmosphere and if there are any leaks, this simply returns to the atmosphere where it belongs. ‘CO2 was the original gas used in the 1930’s which was ousted for more modern gases, but the damage caused by traditional gases and other pollutants to the Ozone Layer and beyond, has resulted in increased global pressure to protect the environment.
The use of CO2 in refrigeration systems will assist in making small yet impactful improvements to our environment and world as a whole.”
For forward thinking innovators Mediterranean Delicacies, returning to natural gases as a means of refrigeration was a vital step forward. ‘We are highly motivated to be the South African leader in environmentally friendly practices within the food manufacturing industry.
Using the CO2 refrigeration technique brings us one step closer to achieving this goal.’ concludes Vayanos.