The smooth consistency enjoyed with every taste of dairy delights such as ice cream, sour creams and dips is made possible thanks to the stabilizers that get mixed into these products. Denali Ingredients gets that texture and quality right for their food processor clients through a constant and substantial investment in equipment and close attention to quality. Maintaining that quality depends on providing a controlled environment with the help of two Goff’s DRAWTITE vinyl powered roll-up doors.
Denali was the original Eskimo Pie Corporation. It is now well known for their rich and tasty Moose Tracks ice cream flavor and also provides flavor bases, fruit packs, purees, sherbet bases and water ice flavors in other consumer favorites from their 70,000 sq ft facility in New Berlin, WI. Their staff performs manufacturing, R&D and quality control.
In developing their customer relationships, Denali offers up low cost production, shortened lead times and the ability to combine ingredients used in branded lines with non-branded ingredients and stabilizers to minimize freight costs. Though for much of their products they serve as a third party supplier, Denali has taken the initiative of conducting studies into what the market is looking for in the area of dairy products.
Most of their production takes place within a closed circuit processing system. The mixing of the stabilizer however requires some product exposure. In updating their process of mixing stabilizers, Operations Manager Arlen Meidenbauer determined, “we wanted to avoid bringing the stabilizer up to the mixer using a conveyor because of the potential problems associated with the product caking on the belt and other parts.”
A conveyor would automate the process but the constant cleaning would slow it down. Denali opted instead for an operator to manually pick up bags loaded on pallets and pour the dextrose, stabilizer gums and sugar into the vertical gravity feed mixer, working on a mezzanine ten feet over the floor.
The unit is a 2,000 lb capacity, food grade 3A dairy finish ribbon blender. Its 25 hp motor enables the blender to process one 2,000 lb batch in an hour. Batching begins as the ingredients flow through the sifter and screener.
“To do this right,” notes Meidenbauer, “we have to do this in a controlled environment to prevent the product from clogging.”
That meant air conditioning the mixing room to prevent humidity build up following the washdown of the room to keep the product siftable. To enable forklift access of the mezzanine from the warehouse side, Denali installed two 12′ x 8′ Goff’s DRAWTITEpowered vinyl roll-up doors, also ten feet above the floor.
Denali has used other roll-up door brands throughout the plant, but the DRAWTITETM door is the best suited for the mixing mezzanine on the basis of cost and performance.
“We didn’t need a high speed option for this process so the DRAWTITETM door works out just fine,” points out Meidenbauer.
The door 110 motor propels the DRAWTITETM to operate at 12″/sec., and are activated only by the forklift driver using a remote control. Electronics are in a NEMA-4 rated control box and can withstand the washdowns.
The construction of the door is ideal for easy cleaning in this food processing operation. Made of 18-oz Coated Vinyl, the panel meets NFPA 701 Standards for Flame Retardancy.
Totally capable of closing off the room, the DRAWTITEII roll-up door has a double baffle under the valance to contain the coating within the room. The very flexible panel bottom edge conforms to the to the floor contours.
EPDM seals on both sides of the door ensure a tight seal at the vertical edges. The pultrusion pockets are reinforced with additional 18-oz coated vinyl and double lock stitched for durability.
To lower maintenance costs many roll-up style doors have a break away feature, enabling the panel to punch out when hit by a forklift. Meidenbauer didn’t want this capability for the mixing mezzanine, especially as the door’s position high off the floor. Resetting a door panel back into the tracks at this height would be an employee hazard.
The DRAWTITE roll-up door is designed to withstand 70 mph windloads and the less severe positive/negative pressures within most plants. In the case of the Denali mixing mezzanine when a forklift makes contact with the door panel, it flexes but does not come out of the guides.
Growth for this 30 year old company continues to accelerate. The reliability of the Goff’s DRAWTITE doors on the mixing mezzanine means that the products from America’s Dairyland can reach coolers and freezers throughout the country to satisfy the country’s crave for sweet, creamy and cold.
###
denali loading – Goff’s DRAWTITEII powered roll-up door allows floor-level access to the mixing mezzanine at Denali Ingredients.
Please send inquires to:
Tony Goff
Goff’s Enterprises, Inc.
1228 Hickory St.
Pewaukee, WI 53072
Telephone: (800) 234-0337
Fax: (262) 691-3255
Email: sales@goffscw.com
