Wherever flake ice is used in the refrigeration and presentation of fresh fish and seafood, German machine manufacturer MAJA says that easy and hygienic handling should be of high priority.
Flake ice is an ideal medium for filling fresh food displays. The dry-frozen ice flakes do not only keep fish and seafood fresh for a long time, but the matt-white ice bed makes the fresh look fresh and more attractive to the customer. MAJA says that studies have proven that displaying of fish and seafood presentation in flake-ice filled counters leads to increased sales compared to other presentation methods.
However, if several cubic metres of sales counters have to be filled with fresh ice every day, the task becomes very labour intensive for the staff. Depending on the display size, personnel can potentially move up to 1.5t of ice, which is exhausting and time-consuming, if no convenient distribution concept is at the staff’s disposal.
MAJA has equipped super- and hypermarkets all over the world with its flake ice producing machines for many decades. The company has developed multiple installation variations that deliver optimum performance in practice by minimising handling efforts.
Several rotating evaporators, for example, can be installed onto an intermediary ceiling, directly above the display area. The fresh ice falls through several distributing chutes automatically to its final place of use. This can be done fully automatically and even overnight, thanks to an individually programmable timer control unit.
Wherever large ice quantities have to be moved over long distances, the company recommends a fully-automatic counter filling system. The MAJA-system solution includes the ice producing unit as well as an ice storage silo. The ice is sprayed into the display through a hand hose by the means of a pneumatic extraction system. The company says that a further advantage of this new system is that the contamination risk is minimised as hands and handling tools such as shovels, buckets etc. are no longer used for the ice dispersal.
To ensure that the ice machines, storage silo and chute systems do not generate hygiene problems, regular cleaning of the whole system is strongly recommended. Each type of ice machine, no matter whether it works with a plate, a spiral or a horizontal evaporator, must be cleaned, decalcified and disinfected at regular intervals. This is a normal and necessary process because drinking water contains microscopic organic and mineral impurities. Over time these impurities deposit on machine parts that come into contact with the water.
For this reason, MAJA flake ice machines can be equipped with the optional and patented, Evaporator Cleaning System. With the push of a button all parts of the evaporator that have contact with water are easily, automatically and reliably cleaned. The cleaning and rinsing process takes about 50 minutes.
MAJA says that the big advantage is that complete cleaning is carried out with only the push of a button! No labour is involved, neither is removal of parts.
MAJA says that even for the ice storage silo itself and the chute equipment the company can offer a patented hygiene solution. The fully automatic chute and silo degermination system improves hygiene conditions, where cleaning and disinfection is not easy at all. The atomised spray (aerosol) reaches even narrow gaps and the disinfectant hydrogen peroxide disintegrates, leaving no residue.
