GEA Westfalia Separator recently supplied food processing equipment to Croft Ltd.’s Greenfields Extra Virgin Avocado Oil processing facility in Thika, Kenya. The plant will extract oil from up to 70 tons of avocado fruits per day via a two-phase cold pressing method to produce clear, high-quality Extra Virgin Avocado Oil.

GEA Westfalia Separator’s scope of the project included the supply of malaxers, decanter and separator equipment, in a process train that extracted a high volume of oil per avocado while demonstrating high efficiency in both energy and water use. GEA Westfalia Separator was also responsible for the installation and commissioning thereof.

“The two-phase decantation uses significantly less water consumption than its three-phase counterpart, facilitating a greater process efficiency, while offering an identical production throughput,” explains Jaco Coetzee, Market Development Engineer, GEA Westfalia Separator South Africa. “In addition, avocado oil obtained in a two-phase process retains all its natural constituents – polyphenols – thus giving the oil a truer, more intense taste.”

Following washing and cleaning and de-stoning and de-skinning phases, the avocado flesh is batch-fed into four 1 000 litre GEA Westfalia Separator malaxers, each of which is individually heat-able, providing optimum product quality with high energy efficiency, and offers both horizontal and vertical agitation.

The resultant avocado ‘mash’ is fed into a Decanter Westfalia Separator ecoforce olivMaster CF 4000, which separates the mash into solids and turbid oil (the latter constituting just over 30% of the feed).

Downstream of the decanter, the Westfalia Separator VSD 10 vertical separator clarifies the avocado oil by isolating and extracting fine impurities in addition to any wastewater content. The separator supplied provides an effective polishing capacity of up to 400 litres per hour through a three-phase 7.5 kW AC motor.

The resultant oil represents one fifth of the mass of the fruit prior to processing.   Both decanter and separator are entirely CIP-compatible, and comprise high quality mechanics and componentry to provide longer wear lifespan, lower noise and simple maintenance. One the decanter, the GEA Westfalia Separator SA summation drive provides intelligent kinematics for high differential speeds and torques, low energy consumption and an automatic control to always provide the optimum differential speed.

In addition to supplying the malaxers, decanter and separator, GEA Westfalia Separator also supplied associated housing, support, and ancillary equipment and accessories, including base and frame for the decanter and separator respectively, an air compressor, the liquids casing and tubes accessories.

GEA Westfalia Separator SA handled the site delivery of the equipment, which holds a warranty against faulty workmanship and defective material for 24 months from the date of start-up. “The attractiveness of our bid wasn’t just due to a competitive pricing methodology, but our global network of strategic branches that includes sales and support offices in Kenya, through which we can offer high levels of customer support,” Coetzee concludes. Crofts Ltd. is a Pro Fair Trade Company.

Enquiries:

Jaco Coetzee

Market Development EngineerGEA Westfalia Separator South AfricaTel: 021 555 9000Fax: 086 625 9302Cell: 083 408 2577Email: jaco.coetzee@gea.comWebsite: www.westfalia-sa.co.za