Freezer Boosts Seafood Production in Grimsby – Fishupdate.com

Freezer Boosts Seafood Production in Grimsby Published:  06 February, 2012

A flexible in-line freezing system from Starfrost has boosted business at a major seafood production facility in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire.

Seacatch provides a wealth of production services to the seafood industry including product freezing, poaching, grading, glazing, bandsawing, packing and labeling.  The firm currently handles around 100 metric tonnes of seafood products per week for leading fish suppliers and many blue chip clients.

Seacatch recently upgraded from a manual blast freezing process by investing in a fully automated in-line system for protective glaze hardening and full freezing of wet fish fillets.  Starfrost’s Starlite HT (Hybrid Tunnel) freezer has enabled Seacatch to increase product quality and throughput, boosting related business by around 40%.

Freezing and chilling equipment specialist Starfrost purpose-designed a versatile multi-belt freezing system for Seacatch.  The Starlite HT features three 1.4m wide product belts within a 6.5m enclosed freezing tunnel.  The conveyor belts are manufactured from close mesh stainless steel to provide excellent product support and reduce marking.

Seacatch’s Starlite HT is designed for rapid full freezing of wet fish fillets and glaze hardening to protect and add value to seafood products. The system has a maximum product capacity of 300kg per hour for freezing and 1,000kg per hour for glazing.

Each of the three product belts on the Seacatch system can be operated independently at different speeds or configured to work together on a cascade principle.  This gives Seacatch the flexibility to process a variety of different products by making simple adjustments to belt configuration and speed.

Seacatch Director Simon Chapman says: “The Starlite HT freezing tunnel has been a real benefit to our company.  It has allowed us to increase capacity through our factory and offer an even higher quality product to our customers.  The system’s flexibility, ease of use and very competitive price were key factors in our decision to work with Starfrost.”