Food and beverage

The food and beverage industry is not a place you would immediately think of when it comes to metal improvement services; however, thermal processing plays a key role in meeting the operational requirements of the equipment utilised in this industry. From coffee grinders to meat grinders to valves; all rely on thermal processing.

Food processing

Food processing equipment presents the demanding material challenges of frequent sterilisation, high wear, corrosion resistance, and the need to reduce costly unscheduled downtime. While stainless steel meets the corrosion requirements, its wear characteristics create a costly challenge for the manufacturing and maintenance engineering teams. Bodycote’s proprietary S3P processes provide surface hardening for stainless steel parts, lowering costs by improving wear resistance, increasing part life, significantly stretching the time between component replacements.

Coffee grinder

A good cup of coffee starts with the correct grinding of fresh coffee beans. A well designed coffee grinder, made out of the right material and heat treated correctly, will maintain the correct fineness of grind over many years. It withstands mechanical and corrosion attacks to ensure a grind with sharp edges without squeezing the beans and preventing heat gain which can damage the beans. With our vacuum heat treatment we are able to increase the hardness and wear resistance of the coffee machine components.

Meat grinder

Meat grinder parts are challenged by high erosion impacts of hard ingredients like bones and herbs as well as corrosion attacks by meat, salts and spices. An appropriate vacuum heat treatment with fast gas quenching can increase hardness, while maintaining the corrosion resistance and extend the longevity of the grinder components.