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Following several years of FDA outreach and industry input, the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Preventive Controls for Human Food rule is now officially final. The rule implements elements from the original proposal in 2013 as well as supplemental proposals since then. Several things have changed as a result. Continue Reading “FSMA Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule Now Final: What You Need to Know”
Food safety should always be a shared responsibility for your food processing plant. Whether you’re planning the hygienic design of a new or existing facility, schedule a collaborative planning session. Invite your engineering and construction professionals along with individuals from multiple departments to answer key questions that will drive the sanitary design of your plant.
Continue Reading “5 Key Questions to Answer During Hygienic Food Plant Design”
Recently, Process Cooling hosted a fantastic webinar on ammonia safety, discussing practical advice for industrial refrigeration system operators. As ammonia usage continues to grow with the changing refrigeration landscape, it’s important for all of us to understand ways to keep our plants and personnel safe.
Continue Reading “4 Common Misperceptions About Ammonia Processes”
Upgrading PLC-5 automation systems has been on the food and beverage industry’s radar for quite some time now. In fact, when I began working at Stellar 12 years ago, people were buzzing about Rockwell Automation moving the processor into retirement (“Silver Series” status). However, the PLC-5 1771 was such a widely popular system, Rockwell held back on pulling the trigger until recently. In August 2012, Rockwell revealed it would no longer support the PLC-5 processor anymore, including engineering replacement parts—big news, considering more than 80 percent of the marketplace owned these systems. Continue Reading “Do You Really Need to Upgrade Your PLC-5 Automation System?”
Lately, we’ve focused on refrigeration compressor packages, blogging about everything from mistakes you may be making with your daily logs to which factors you need to check regularly. This week, we provide an infographic to help you identify red flags that may signal compressor health issues.
Continue Reading “[Infographic] Refrigeration Compressor Red Flags”Are you failing to tend to what’s right underneath your feet? Though concrete freezer floors can last up to more than half a century, the underfloor heating system beneath still requires regular preventive maintenance. If you don’t take the proper precautions, frost can form in the sub-grade soils resulting in raised, cracked floors and a host of potential problems, including: safety concerns, operational issues and significant structural damage. Continue Reading “How to Prevent and Repair Frost Heave Under Your Freezer Floor”
After working with compressors for nearly three decades, there’s one mistake I see people making time and time again when it comes to their compressor maintenance. They keep their daily logs, recording necessary temperatures regularly, but when they’re through, they simply put the logs aside and don’t look at them again. The results are not analyzed for corrective measures, if discovered. Are you looking back to ensure you’re addressing the inconsistencies and issues you notice during your compressor evaluations? Analyzing the daily logs is just as important as writing it down. Continue Reading “The One Mistake You’re Making With Your Compressor Logs”
While we’ve already blogged about ways to determine the fitness of your refrigeration compressor, it’s important to pay attention to the big picture as well. Ensure you keep up with the the health of your entire refrigeration compressor package, as failure to check components including the motor, control panel and suction superheat, can cause major failures. Here are the 14 key factors to check within each component of your compressor package.
July marks an exciting milestone for Stellar: our 30th anniversary. While we’ve celebrated plenty of remarkable moments over the past three decades, we know we’re not the only ones. Food processing has experienced several turning points of its own, signifying key changes that have molded food manufacturing as we know it today. Continue Reading “[Timeline] 9 Defining Moments for the Food Processing Industry”
I recently joined hundreds of refrigeration stakeholders in Atlanta for ATMOsphere America 2015, an annual natural refrigerants conference. Stellar was among the 37 sponsors, and I among the group of 60-plus speakers, leading a presentation on the advantages of packaged refrigeration equipment. I also attended several sessions myself, leaving the conference with valuable takeaways on the refrigeration industry, including my favorites below: Continue Reading “The Latest in Natural Refrigerants: ATMOsphere America 2015 Recap”
![[Infographic] Refrigeration Compressor Red Flags](https://stellarfoodforthought.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/REP-stellar-infographic.jpg)
![[Timeline] 9 Defining Moments for the Food Processing Industry](https://stellarfoodforthought.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Defining-Moments-for-the-Food-Processing-31.png)
