A new cheese-making plant in Denmark expects to boost production capacity while reducing cooling-water use and effluent because of its equipment choices. Scheduled to begin production this fall, Them Co-Operative Dairy in Silkeborg contracted with Invensys APV to build the plant, which will be capable of manufacturing more than 15 tons of cheese per day. The facility will help decrease wastewater treatment costs by reducing the effluent discharge from the cooling of cheeses.

According to dairy manager Svend Andersen, the APV technology "allows cooling water to be reused. As a result, we expect to cut between 10 percent and 15 percent" from the dairy's annual water treatment supply bill.

Invensys APV has long experience in the European pressed-cheese market, including milk treatment, starter culture addition, curd making, cooling/brining and finishing/storage. At Them Co-Operative, the process begins with curdmaking, the purpose of which is to transform the cheese milk into quality cheese curd with the highest possible yield. The curd and remaining whey is pumped to APV's OPD prepress system, where the curd is distributed via an automatic distributor before being pre-pressed into a cheese cake and the whey drained off.

The cheese cake is cut into blocks, which are conveyed to the APV SaniPress system for final pressing in cheese molds before being transferred for cooling, brining and ripening. Later, empty cheese molds are washed with APV's patented pressure cleaning system.

APV also supplied the cheese-block brining system, consisting of a filler for brining racks, the brining racks themselves, loading system, cooling/brining vats, automatic unloading system, rack conveying and washing system, overhead crane for rack transfer, and a brine buffer/cooling system.