New Canola Oil Pump

We like to keep our customers updated when we make improvements to our factory. Some like to know what we've been up to, others are interested in the technical side of food production. Either way, here's our latest update. 

Notes on our new Canola Oil Pump. Updated by Toby Green, 10th May 2024.

Background 

Elysian Foods uses Canola in the production of its dips and olives. For some years now we have been using oil from a 1000L cube. The oil has been gravity fed into the kitchen. The oil outlet tube is positioned so that a measured amount of oil can flow directly into the food processor. The quantity required varies depending on the product. 

Previous method of measuring oil - using a timer 

The earliest method involved a simple air driven valve controlled by a switch. The timing was manual - we used a basic digital countdown timer that you can purchase from kitchen supply shops. This process relied on someone standing there and manually turning on and off the flow of oil. 

The next iteration was more advanced - this involved a digital timer incorporated into the switch (connected to the same air driven valve). 

This meant that the operator could set the time and then leave the oil to flow - the switch would engage when the timer reached the required number of seconds. 

The process of delivering a specific volume of oil by allowing the oil to flow for a certain amount of time has some significant drawbacks. 

• First, you have to measure the flow rate (we measured it in seconds per litre)
• Second, the flow rate decreases over time as the tank empties. In order to deliver the same amount of oil, the time increases. 

This whole process relied on gravity to feed the oil down the pipe. Given that the outlet for the pipe (over the food processor) needed to be around 6 feet above the ground, this meant that the tank needed to be lifted and stored slightly over 6 feet above the ground, and located as close to outlet as possible. Not easy with a large 1000L tank that weighs over one tonne when full. 

The new canola oil pump - using a volumetric filling machine 

We’ve long been on the lookout for a large diameter, food-grade, volumetric pump. The only ones that we found are designed for major industrial applications, and were therefore very expensive. 

Elysian Foods has been using volumetric filling machines to dispense our dips for a long time. We decided to try modifying one of these machines, as they are well suited to dispensing liquids. It’s very easy to set the machine to deliver a specific amount of liquid for each cycle. 

The challenge was to find a way to get the filling machine to run for a set number of cycles

We turned to the team from Autoline Industrial, who are based just down the road from the Elysian HQ. 

They modified the volumetric filling machine so that the number of cycles could be set to the required number (see photo of our new pump!). Operation of the system is via a push button on a box that can be mounted close to the operator. 

We’ve set the volumetric filling machine so that it dispenses 500ml with each cycle. One of our dips requires 3 litres of oil, so the operator can set the control box to deliver 6 cycles. 

We’ve adjusted the speed per cycle (using the controls on the volumetric filling machine). We’ve got it running at one cycle per 3.5 seconds (approximately). That seems to work well for blending the oil into our products. 

The whole system is easy to assemble and disassemble - which makes it easy to clean down the system when required!