Del Monte Installs Bulk Material handling Equipment For Soup Production

A Del Monte plant in Mendota, IL is responsible for producing canned soups that appear on grocery store shelves under more than 50 different brand names. The starch prep area or “starch kitchen” as it’s called, forms the heart of the soup production process. It is essentially responsible for producing the soup base from a combination of dry and wet ingredients including cracker meal, cake flour, brine, tomato paste, corn syrup and spices. The metered major ingredients and pre-weighed minors are added to water and mixed to form the soup base. The base, combined with various vegetables and meats is then cooked to form a variety of final soup products.

Installation of a food-grade bulk bag discharging and metering system that would gravimetrically supply between 750 and 1500 lbs of either material to either of two 900 gallon stainless steel mix tanks in 10 minutes, would not exceed 21 feet in height and, could be quickly disassembled and cleaned using high pressure hot water allows them to producing (6) 900 gallon batches of soup base an hour.