Around 6500 tonnes of fish heads and backbones are routed from production at the Samherji processing plant in Dalvík in the north of Iceland to be dried for export, and the company has optimised this with a pump system to transfer these from fillet production to the drying area.
The two processing areas are around 300 metres apart, and the heads and back bones are now pumped along a pipe, instead of being delivered in tubs by forklift.
‘We are drying 140 to 150 tonnes each week, so we had forklifts bringing around a hundred tubs a day. Reckoning on distance between the buildings, that means the foklifts were covering around 15km daily, so the pump system is a positive step in environmental terms, plus the raw material reaches us fresher and in better condition,’ said drying department head Gunnar Aðalbjörnsson.
The system was part of the plan when the new processing plant in Dalvík was designed. Water from the production plant’s refrigeration system is used to pump the raw material.
‘It’s a whole new world. Management is much easier and more efficient in every way, as well as reducing emissions. We’ve only had this in use for a few days so far, but it promises well and there have been no significant problems.’
Samherji’s dried fish production is the district’s largest consumer of hot water, using around 40 tonnes per hour, and Gunnar Aðalbjörnsson explained that the water is used as effectively as possible.
‘We’re not only using overflow water from production’s refrigeration system. The hot water that we consume is then routed to keep the pavements are car parks around the building free of snow. We make sure that we use this water as effectively as possible,’ he said.
