CFT Group has delivered its first turnkey line in Nicaragua, for FRUTCO DE LAS AMERICAS, a company born from the merger between the Swiss based banana puree broker FRUTCO and fresh banana producer COEN GROUP, based in Nicaragua but with Italian roots, employing over 7000 persons worldwide.
The first part of this complete line is CFT aseptic filler MACROPAK, which was offered with a special OXONIA KIT, used to fill low-acid products, such as banana puree. The company is actually about to obtain the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) validation, necessary for the customer to be authorised to sell its puree in the USA and reach the highest product quality on the market.
FRUTCO also had a special request to handle its passion fruit puree with extreme care. CFT Group answered this challenge with its dedicated extractor GIUBILEO, allowing to reach an extraction return of up to 30%, combined with a peel depulper which can recover up to 5% of juice. The second step is the product flowing into the GIUBILEO extractor which task is to carefully eliminate any possible seed, before the puree reaches the decanter where black specks are removed. The juice obtained at the end of this process can be sterilised and aseptically filled, or alternatively, it can be cooled down to be finally frozen.
Part of the line was also CFT Group’s specially designed and resized scraped surface heat exchangers: the OLIMPIC solution, which has also recently had its maintenance system considerably upgraded.
The star rotating valve is usually mounted on CFT Group’s cold Extractor GIUBILEO, in order to avoid any air entry into the machine. In this specific case it has been decided to locate it on a hopper which works as a buffer, where the banana (peeled and still unbroken) remains for some minutes before being inactivated.
Beyond the design and installation of this complete line, the collaboration between CFT Group and FRUTCO/COEN GROUP has been a real partnership. CFT Group provided a complete 360° consulting support, allowing to launch this activity in the best possible way, always with the aim to maximise the machines performance on the long term.
