Specialist vibrating equipment provider Joest added US-based particle separation and size reduction solutions company Sweco’s full range of equipment to its product range in June, says Joest MD Kim Schoepflin.

The full Sweco range comprises Gyramax gyratory sifters, round and rectangular separators, turbo screen separators, grinding mills, Sta-Sieves, PharmaASep equipment, hydrocyclones and centrifu- gal separators.

Schoepflin points out that the agreement facilitates access to several industry sectors, including food and beverage, mining and minerals processing, pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, and plastics.

“Irrespective of the application – wet or dry, fine or coarse, hot or cold – the Sweco range is ideal for food and beverage applications,” she says.

Fruit Juice
Schoepflin notes that Joest recently installed a 60-inch single-deck round separator at a fruit processor in South Africa for pip and pulp-fibre removal, prior to filtration for bottling.

“Juice enters the top screen deck of the separator and flows through to the bottom. The top screen separates the larger seeds and portions of the skin, while the second screen separates the desirable smaller juice sacs . The undesirable small seeds and bitter fine pulp passes through the second screen as an effluent,” she explains.

Breadcrumb Coating
Further, Schoepflin highlights that Joest also installed a separator to remove excess breadcrumb material from the breadcrumb coating production process.

“Speciality food manufacturers welcome the Sweco separators as the gentle circular motion enables excess breadcrumbs to fall off, while maintaining the integrity of the main coating,” she notes.

Beer
Joest has also supplied a 48-inch single-deck round separator to a major brewer in Tanzania, highlights Schoepflin.

Joest sales GM Yashin Ramdhin highlights that the African market consumes large quantities of traditional sorghum beer, which is now being manufactured by many major breweries to capitalise on this market.

He explains that sorghum is the main ingredient and is known as the African alternative to barley – which is used to form the malt for brewers’ mash or brewers’ beer.

The end result is a cloudy, opaque beer with a distinctive fermented taste, he adds, pointing out that the Sweco separator can effectively remove the remaining bits of grain of between 0.7 mm and 0.9 mm from the final filtrate.

Sugar
Schoepflin says that the bulk of local enquiries for Sweco equipment comes from the sugar milling and processing industry.

“The sugar-packaging sector has been inundated with a demand for castor sugar of a –425 µm to 106 µm size fraction,” she says.

In addition to castor sugar, these screen factions can also produce confectionary and table sugar products in a single pass, owing to the efficient motion and multideck compact design.

Owing to current market demand, there has been a significant increase in production, which, in turn, has led to a concomitant strain on producers’ infrastructure, highlights Schoepflin.

Joest is collaborating with several engineering companies that have been awarded major contracts for various sugar-mill upgrades, she adds.

Chocolate
Meanwhile, Schoepflin notes that the company was recently requested to replace a cantilevered centrifuge at a major confectioner’s chocolate facility. The Sweco equipment is used for the critical sizing of the organic hazel nut coating in the manufacturing of its coated confectionary.

Joest is now able to exclusively supply the Sweco range to South Africa and 35 African countries, concludes Schoepflin.