Project Brief
Karro McGee are the Irish operations of Karro Food Group who operate throughout Ireland and the UK producing pork from farm to fork including farming, slaughter and processing operations integrated within. CRS have been working with Karro McGee since 2011 and supply a number of temperature controlled storage solutions for a variety of operations.
Karro contacted CRS Mobile Cold Storage to supply a range of additional refrigerated storage units for different purposes to provide the full portfolio of temperature control required for a new product launch within a major Irish retailer.
Challenges
Karro McGee had a wide range of temperature storage requirements posted to CRS, including customised and specialist equipment, including direct access from the existing facility without being outside. These units included blast freezing, chilling, thawing and frozen storage as well as an additional internal cold room to ensure some products were chilled lower than others whilst being manufactured.
There was a short deadline on this project that CRS had to take into consideration in the design and specification of this project.
Solutions
In order to meet the specific requirements of Karro McGee, plans and drawings were submitted from their dedicated project manager. These drawings were based upon the specific volume needs for each unit as well as the blast capacity for the forced air flow blast freezer.
It was agreed that there would be a new large mega cold store unit for chilled storage placed on site. This would be combined with a blast freezer and holding freezer along with a thawing unit. These would all be joined to the building to ensure seamless integration with the production process of the new product range as launched in Ireland.
Karro McGee had a pre-existing chilled production area, chilled below 12˚C, however some product needed to be stored below this. In order to achieve the desired outcome, a 6 pallet modular cold room was constructed within the existing chilled production area. This was set up to be below 4˚C to ensure these specific products maintain the temperatures required.
This project was delivered on time and with minimal disruption to existing facilities due to the flexible and considerate CRS approach.
Result
Karro McGee had this to say about working with CRS and the CRS solution received:
"We have been doing business with CRS since 2011 and have a large number of their external temperature controlled stores on hire in our premises.
Over the past 9 months we have expanded significantly due to a product launch with a major retailer in Ireland. For this purpose we needed to increase the volume of product substantially and as a result, increase the amount of in-house cold storage equipment at varying temperatures in a huge hurry.
We contacted CRS looking for their expertise and they provided us with a bespoke solution, installing and customising integrated units both attached to the existing building adding doorways where necessary and also purpose building an internal cold room.
In all, CRS provided us with a large Mega unit for chilled storage, a 40ft Blast Freezer and holding freezer, a 20ft thawing unit for defrosting frozen product and a 6 pallet modular cold room, built inside our existing 8-12°C chilled production area to keep some product below 4°C while in production.
Given the time frame surrounding this project, we couldn’t have been happier with the installation and the quality of equipment and service provided by the CRS team. They provided a complete temperature control solution for our business, delivered on time while offering us an extremely flexible approach to installation.
They were extremely competitive and I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone in the business."
Yours faithfully
Paul Brady
Site Director
Karro McGee RoI Ltd
