Plant of the Year 2014
Blue Diamond Growers was chosen as Food Engineering's 2014 Plant of the Year. The Sacramento-based company is the world’s largest producer of almonds and almond ingredients.
Plant of the Year 2014
Blue Diamond Growers new Turlock plant processes 60 varieties of brown and blanched almonds on three lines in the Ready-to-Eat zone.
Plant of the Year 2014
Wet and dry process steps are sequential and separate in this facility. Almonds emerge from blanching on this line.
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant manager Ulli Thiersch stands on Blue Diamond’s first interstitial space, a structural second floor built above its processing zone to house equipment serving machinery in the RTE zone below. Moving the equipment eliminates 7,500 sq. ft of stainless steel hoods.
Plant of the Year 2014
This almond scalding unit comes through a wall separating Blue Diamond’s wet pasteurization stage from the sterile and dry processing area of the RTE.
Plant of the Year 2014
Blue Diamond processes almonds in a continuous and not batch process. Furthermore, almonds can be subject to three types of slicing, dicing or slivering with changeovers conducted on the fly, where older system require a tool change.
Plant of the Year 2014
Jovan Petrovic, project manager at Whiting-Turner, demonstrates the real-time 3-D visualization capability of building information modeling, used to construction the plant, including the utility piping above.
Plant of the Year 2014
The entire western wall of the plant is designed to be removed and reused when plant expansion is required. Each 33 ft. high panel is connected through a metal plate and welding approach.
Plant of the Year 2014
Finished product from the RTE is fed uniformly from the packaging mezzanine to the packing and shipping units below.
Plant of the Year 2014
Two bulk and three bag packaging lines accurately fill 25- or 50 lb bags or 2,000 lb totes before sealing labeling and palletizing. The lines are fed almonds from the packaging mezzanine above.
Plant of the Year 2014
Allan Bradley controls are used throughout the plant, with PLC stations strategically placed at key process points.
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014
Plant of the Year 2014