Background

A major potato processing plant in North America produces battered and shaped French fries sold to major foodservice and retail suppliers across the globe. The battered product lines and form lines have high amounts of carbohydrate, oil, and sugar soils that build up on and around the fryer area.

The plant manufactures product for 21 continuous days and has a 24-hour shutdown period to clean. The customer is currently using a competitor’s high alkaline, ready-to-use gel cleaner and while they are meeting expected cleaning outcomes, they are experiencing several issues:

• Applying the competitor’s gel cleaner takes 1 hour per fryer due to slow dispensing and limited surface coverage due
  to high viscosity.
• The high viscosity of the competitor’s gel cleaner clogs and damages the dispensing equipment causing downtime due to constant repairs and maintenance.
• The high alkaline concentrations in the competitor’s gel cleaner are known to have caused injuries and respiratory irritation to users applying it.

After consulting with the Ecolab Account Manager, the plant management decided to use Exelerate™ TUFSOIL, a ready-to-use heavy duty gel cleaner and degreaser, to tackle their hard-to-remove oils and French fry soils. The success criteria were the following:

• Reduce the time spent applying the chemistry on the surfaces and minimize downtime due to dispensing equipment maintenance.
• Reduce the overall time spent cleaning the fryer line and achieve equal or improved cleaning results when compared to the competitor’s gel cleaner.
• Enhance worker safety during application of chemistry and reduce respiratory hazards.