Moducel the right recipe for Noon Foods
Moducel air handling units have fulfilled a bespoke engineering requirement for the UK’s leading ethnic food producer, Noon Products Ltd.
Moducel LKS air-handling units have been installed and commissioned at Noon’s
new purpose built manufacturing plant in Southall. This is the third factory
for Noon, which specialises in the production of Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican
and Indonesian chilled and frozen dishes as well as snack foods.
High technology has been applied to every phase of the factory’s construction. Occupying 108,000sq.ft it is one of the first factories to ensure total hygiene, by incorporating Microban’s patented antibacterial protection into the ceiling and wall panels in high-risk areas.
SBH Design Services who have worked jointly with Moducel on several projects since 1981 specified Moducel’s LKS units. SBH specialises in design and build refrigeration and air conditioning systems for the industrial and food processing sectors.
The brief specified a heating and cooling system that conformed to current
health and safety guidelines and EC directives on food preparation and processing.
Having successfully worked together on previous projects, Moducel was contracted by SBH to design a system that could address Noon’s requirements.
Well used to working with the strict confines of the food industry, Moducel’s solution was to provide high quality clean air with heating by steam with DX (direct expansion) cooling on two of the units to maintain the necessary low temperature room environments (12°C) for food preparation.
The LKS range of air handlers was ideally suited for the application. The units feature special continuous seam-welded, fully galvanised Pentapost sections for strength and durability. The panels are a ‘sandwich’ type construction with a flat inner panel of 1mm galvanised steel and an outer tray assembly also of galvanised steel, with a 40mm layer of high quality infill material to provide thermal and acoustic insulation.
A smooth streamlined appearance with no sign of external fixings other than
for the access doors is a major feature of the design. Smooth internal surfaces
also minimise frictional losses in airflow and play an important part in hygiene.
Inner flanges on the Pentapost help create a positive air seal behind the panels
minimising air leakage.
A total of seven units were used with cooling units rated at 10.0 and 11.0m³/s and cooling capacities of 92.6kW, 155.8kW, 141.7kW and 33.4kW. They were all manufactured with upgraded panels/frame. This was to prevent the casing and frame temperature falling below the required temperatures and condensation forming which could then drip from the AHUs, cold bridge characteristics of 15°K were an essential part of the design criteria.
The units were mounted on steelwork in the roof void, directly above the food preparation area. This latest installation from Moducel highlights its versatility in being able to deliver solutions that can meet exacting customer requirements within budget and on time.