Sustainability benefits
- Reduced product waste from interrupted processing
- Lower energy consumption linked to downtime and restart cycles
- Efficient use of existing processing infrastructure
Customer brief
A pizza manufacturer producing tomato sauce for continuous depositing was forced to stop production multiple times each day to clear tomato pieces that were too large for their sauce depositing machine. These interruptions caused downtime, labor disruption and reduced line efficiency, creating pressure to find a reliable particle-size-control solution.
The processor wanted to find a way to modify their current system to reduce large tomato chunks while maintaining the desired sauce body and viscosity, avoiding the common problem of turning the sauce into an overly thin liquid.
Fristam’s solution
Fristam recommended integrating an FS shear blender with a 3521-rotor stator combination into the existing sauce transfer system. With this configuration of rotor-stator design intermeshed teeth generated controlled mechanical shear and turbulence, which enabled predictable tomato particle size reduction, without pureeing – preserving the sauce viscosity and body.
Trial set-up
1. Tomato sauce was transferred through the existing line using a Fristam positive displacement pump feeding a batch tank.
2. The Fristam FS 3521 Shear Blender was installed inline within the current blending and transfer configuration.
3. Sauce passed through the rotor-stator shear zone, where oversized tomato particles were uniformly reduced.
4. Shear intensity was controlled to ensure particle reduction without viscosity loss or over-processing.
5. The processed sauce was delivered to the depositing machine for operational evaluation.
6. Continuous production confirmed stable depositing, consistent texture and elimination of blockage-related downtime.
A successful outcome with the Fristam FS Shear Blender
The FS Shear Blender successfully reduced tomato chunk size while preserving sauce consistency, preventing pieces from obstructing the depositing machine. As a result, production interruptions were eliminated and the manufacturer achieved significant uptime improvement, with an estimated at 250 hours of downtime saved annually.
Impressed by the consistency, reliability and operational savings, the processor proceeded to install multiple FS Shear Blenders across the facility, ensuring long-term performance in pizza sauce production.
Financial benefits
- Elimination of daily production stoppages
- Estimated 250 hours of downtime saved per year
- Improved line efficiency and labor utilization
- Cost-effective inline retrofit rather than full system replacement
Other benefits
- Hygienic inline design compatible with food manufacturing standards
- Seamless integration with positive displacement pumping systems
- Proven scalability for ready-meal, sauce and food-to-go production lines
- Strong value proposition for OEMs, system integrators and project engineers
Process / Product quality benefits
- Controlled tomato particle size reduction without over-shearing viscosity
- Stable sauce body, texture and solids suspension
- Reliable continuous depositing performance
- Repeatable product consistency across production batches