GEA Food Solutions delivered, installed and commissioned two 1,000-milimeter wide processing lines for the new Cargill integrated poultry operation in Lai’an in the Anhui province of China in just nine months – eight weeks ahead of schedule. On September 2, Cargill delivered its first shipment of chicken nuggets from one of the lines to McDonald's China, helping satisfy a sudden and unexpected increase in demand from the world’s leading quick service restaurant chain.
The first line processes chicken nuggets at a rate of 30 tons per day while the second line processes boneless and bone-in poultry products.
Christopher Langholz, president of the Business Unit Cargill Animal Protein China, commented, “This operation is strategically important to Cargill in China, meaning the timing is critical. So when an opportunity arose to start supplying McDonald's earlier than originally planned, we appreciated GEA’s commitment and ability to move things forward by eight weeks.”
A collaborative effort
The lines represent a EUR10 million (US$12.7 million) order for GEA Food Solutions, who worked closely with GEA Refrigeration Technology for the deepfreeze and cooling part of the project, worth an additional EUR 7 million (US$8.9 million). To realize the two lines in such a short time also meant working closely with partners like logistics and rigging specialists Convoy, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and integrated packaging solutions provider Hellings Machinebouw, Sint Oedenrode, the Netherlands, which handled the transport belt automation around GEA SmartPacker vertical packaging machines. Project Leader Christian van Grinsven said: “Unusually for a project of this size, the customer also asked us to organize and oversee lifting the equipment into place (rigging) and to install utilities. This involved using local contractors, who were carefully selected with the help of our Chinese sales and customer support personnel. Local GEA people were also vital for overcoming language issues.”
Strengthening a long-standing
relationship
Project manager for GEA Food Solutions
Mikhail Volynkin stated: “China is an important region for both GEA and
Cargill, and the success of this project has strengthened the long-standing
relationship between our two companies. GEA Food Solutions has built up
experience in many different countries already. By using the experience gained
in Europe, Russia and similar projects in Thailand, we were able to shave 8 weeks
off the original deadline”.
Cargill’s vertically integrated poultry operation
Cargill officially
inaugurated its world-class vertically integrated poultry operation in China in
September 2013.
The project covers each stage of the poultry supply chain, including chicken
breeding, raising, feed production, hatching, slaughtering and processing. The
facility has the capacity to process approximately 65 million chickens per
year, as well as 176,000 metric tons poultry products per year and is part of
Cargill’s support for the modernization of agriculture and food safety in
China.
The full scope of GEA Food Solutions’ equipment
Discussions with GEA for the processing lines started in late 2012, and on-site installation commenced in January 2014. Nine months later, the first kilogram of nuggets was produced, and the line is now capable of running at an even higher capacity than originally specified. The project covers the full scope of GEA Food Solutions’ equipment, including preparation, marination, processing, freezing and packaging machines. Line one features partial frying for nugget production, while line two has a GEA spiral oven for various fully cooked poultry parts.
