Pet food, South Africa

Grinding solution for pet foods boosts yields

Pet food

Dogs and cats are today regarded fully-fledged members of the family. Healthy nutrition has a great impact on the health of our four-legged friends. Constantly increasing market volumes and growth in the premium pet food segment confirm this trend. AFGRI Animal Feeds, a subsidiary of Philafrica Foods, with its roots in mixed feed production, has identified this trend and is using European technology for the construction of its new factory in Johannesburg. After the project manager visited a friend in England, who has been a Tietjen customer himself for more than 20 years, it was clear that grinding system had to be provided by Tietjen.

Energy efficiency and flexibility in one system

The combination of a modern GDL 25 module and crossyoke plansifter opens up several process paths. Depending on the formula and its ingredients, the operator can decide whether the mixture should be ground or sifted first. Where formulas contain a high percentage of flour (e.g. meat and bone meal), it is advisable to send them to the sifter first. This ensures that it is only necessary to grind ingredients that are larger than a certain target size. Not only does this ensure a quicker process, it also results in a significant energy saving for hammer mill operation. The portion of the product that is ground in the hammer mill is then sent to the sifter as well, and thus fed into the previously sifted product.

This type of system enables the customer to react very flexibly to new requirements, such as changes to formulas, new grain sizes or more frequent changes of product.

Safety and customer satisfaction a priority

As one of the leading manufacturers of animal feeds in the region, and one of its biggest employers, Afgri Animal Feeds makes operational safety its top priority. For these reasons, they opted for a system conforming to European ATEX guidelines. The Tietjen module won them over because of its structural explosion protection concept and indoor pressure relief.

Another key component of their decision to go for a Tietjen solution was the hammer mill’s user-friendliness. The existing mill had to be replaced. Changing the sieve took several hours, which meant that the extruder had to be switched off and cooled down.

With the GDL 25, it’s now possible to change the sieve within minutes – even with the machine running. And, thanks to the unique frame system and associated frame changing mechanism, changing the beaters has become one of the operating team’s favourite jobs.

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