Geelen Counterflow wins Victam Innovation Award 2007

The tri-annual event, which attracts key players from
the feed industry worldwide, ended its first day in style with the presentation
of the Victam International 2007 Innovation Awards, organised by Feed Tech the
leading international magazine for the feed compounding industry.
Dick
Ziggers, editor of Feed Tech and chairman of the jury panel presented the
awards. The other members of the jury were Erik Eggelen, Menno Thomas, Leo
Slütter and Alexander Feil. Main criteria for judgement were newness,
originality, fundamental principles, importance to the sector, and complexity.

Gold Award
The Victam International 2007 Gold Award was won by
Geelen Counterflow
for their Energy Efficiency Indicator (EEI). The EEI gives the operators a
visual and numerical indication of the efficiency of the current drying process.
On the control display the operator can check how many kJ of energy are
currently being consumed by the dryer, for every kg of water that is evaporated.
This unit of measure (kJ/kg evaporation) is the critical indicator of efficiency
for every dryer.

The jury unanimously placed the EEI on top of their
list. “The system measures energy and moisture, which are very important items
in today’s modern feed production, not only from a cost perspective, but also
from a quality perspective,” the jury motivated its choice. “The EEI measures
all the drying variables in real time, which gives the operator the possibility
to immediately adjust the drying process to the quality standards needed. And
even in an already efficient counterflow cooler a 10% extra energy efficiency
can be obtained.”

Silver Award
Imtech Projects as the exhibitor for the Magicon
flexible feed production system won the Silver Award. Magicon is a flexible feed
production line, consisting of a limited set of state-of-the-art equipment in
such a new combination that it is able to produce the widest variety of feed
products, and supports and enhances the design of any totally new feed
products.
“When you look at it from a practical point of view a new test feed
mill for the Netherlands has been created. It is not so much that the equipment
is new or innovative, but the concept of flexibility in manufacturing all sorts
of feeds is the real innovation,” the jury report says. “Furthermore it is quite
an achievement to have three competing companies work together in this
project.”

Bronze Award
Roca
Systems received a Bronze Award for their fine dosing system for mixing
outside the feed plant, RS-Safemix. This system allows a feed miller to register
and track where a by-product was added, with what dosing system, and by whom it
was filled and delivered. The system is unique because of its legal homologation
capabilities. Until now only manual and difficult to control systems have
existed, which cannot comply with official legislation.

The full control
and traceability of the added by-product (medicines) impressed the jury. “If a
feed compounder has to add medicines to the feed it is logical to do this at the
far end of the production line and preferably not in the manufacturing plant.
With RS-Safemix the medicines not even have to be added in the bulk truck but at
the end during unloading into the silo, which avoids cross-contamination. It can
even be imagined that a large pig farm installs the system in the feed loading
area to add delicate ingredients to the feed at the farm,” concluded the
jury.

Related link:
Victam

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