Efficient, Reliable Cooling: Protecting Seafood Manufacturer’s High-Volume, Time-Critical Production

ICS Cool Energy delivered essential cooling system upgrades with zero downtime and uninterrupted production.

One of the UK’s leading suppliers of freshly cooked seafood products engaged  ICS Cool Energy to optimise efficiency and upgrade the ageing chiller infrastructure serving the site’s main cooked prawn line.

The Challenge

The seafood company imports deep-frozen warm-water prawns from South America and Asia. The product is thawed, cooked, rapidly cooled, packed and shipped chilled the same day. With a shelf life of just ten days, any delay or issue with post-cook cooling can compromise both food safety and commercial viability, and adversely affect yield through overcooking and protein loss.

The chiller supporting this line was installed in 2008, when the site expanded from frozen-only production to chilled products, in response to rising demand for fresh seafood.By 2024, the unit had reached the end of its reliable service life, with a two-compressor design creating a single point of failure and spare parts becoming increasingly scarce. Failure of one compressor was forcing the remaining unit to operate at maximum capacity, leaving no margin for unexpected load spikes; total failure would halt production entirely. With the line operating at three tonnes of product per hour, 40 to 50 hours each week, even a short outage would have had immediate and costly consequences.

The replacement project had to be completed without interrupting production, while improving system resilience and enabling energy performance monitoring.

The new system needed to:

• Be installed without interrupting production
• Deliver reliability with readily available components
• Eliminate single points of failure
• Provide capacity headroom for partial outages;
• Incorporate modern efficiency technologies to support corporate social responsibility (CSR) ambitions relating to energy efficiency and carbon footprint reduction
• Integrate seamlessly into existing processes and service arrangements.

The Solution

This was the latest milestone in long-standing relationship as ICS Cool Energy has delivered and serviced multiple chillers on the site and remain the exclusive cooling partner for the seafood company’s production lines.

ICS Cool Energy delivered and installed a process chiller featuring maintenance free hermetic four-scroll-compressor system, matched to the production line’s peak cooling demand, with surplus capacity to maintain performance if one compressor is offline. A dual duty/standby pump arrangement enabled pumps to alternate for extend service life and ensuring continuous cooling.

Modern efficiency features, including variable speed drives and high-efficiency motors, facilitate energy savings. Preparatory works were completed prior to installation, and the full changeover was executed within a single weekend, allowing the new system to be integrated, tested and made fully operational without disrupting production.

The Result 

The new cooling system has improved reliability, eliminated obsolescence risks, and enhanced resilience across the process. Increased cooling capacity and pump redundancy mean the line can continue operating within safe temperature limits even during partial equipment outages.

The installation was completed with zero lost production time, safeguarding product quality and production schedules. Every stage, from planning and preparation to final commissioning, was handled with precision and coordination. The entire chiller replacement was completed within the agreed weekend timeframe, with all systems integrated and tested, and not a single hour of production lost. es.  

The upgrade has bolstered the site’s cooling infrastructure to meet current and future production demands.