FKL Pays for Itself on HFCS

A US confectionery maker recently increased their food safety efforts by upgrading from non-sanitary gear pumps to sanitary, stainless steel pumps. In doing so, they decided to put Fristam to the test.

After evaluating their sanitary pump options, the processor installed a Fristam FKL series positive displacement pump and a competitor’s sanitary PD on parallel lines transferring High Fructose Corn Syrup used in their licorice production.

Like all liquid sugars, HFCS is viscous and difficult to seal. However, because of the FKL’s seal design and Fristam’s application experience, they were confident their FKL could pump it efficiently, with no issues.

After 18 months of service, the plant manager commented during their review that the competitor pump required so many seal replacements, they had lost count. He further said that they hadn’t even had to touch the Fristam FKL since it has run perfectly from the beginning and required no maintenance whatsoever.

Taking into account the savings associated with labor, downtime and replacement parts, the decision to buy another Fristam FKL was clear. For the cost of replacing the competitor pump’s seal the first four times it failed, the company could buy a new FKL. So not only has the processor purchased another FKL, they have plans to purchase more in the future.