Agristo N.V. in Nazareth, Belgium
Agristo N.V.
Agristo N.V. is a renowned company with its head office in Harelbeke (Belgium) and with additional production locations in Nazareth and Tilburg (The Netherlands). Agristo specializes in the production of a wide range of frozen and fried potato products, such as French fries. After its foundation more than 30 years ago, Agristo continues to develop its core business and now has a production of more than 400,000 tons of product per year with sales in more than 80 countries.
New construction
In view of the increasing demand, Agristo decided to expand the production facility in Nazareth by building a new automatic high-rise cold store (refrigerated warehouse) that is suitable for almost 25,000 pallets at a temperature of -25°C. The new warehouse is equipped with a height of 44 meters one of the highest refrigerated, fully automatic warehouses in the world. Because the fully automatic logistics system is very advanced and works at very low temperatures, Agristo recognized the importance of minimizing the risk of fire in this extremely dry environment and has taken all possible (preventive) precautions.
Fire prevention
One of the most important safety measures in this building is the LOX (Low Oxygen) fire prevention system from FX Prevent, which minimizes the risk of a potential fire, for example caused by overheating or defects in cables, moving parts or other components.
Agristo has also been using the FX Prevent LOX system in its frozen storage facility in Tilburg (since 2013), and when the plans for the new frozen storage facility to be built became concrete, Agristo again approached FX Prevent for the design and construction of a LOX fire prevention system that will protect the frozen products against potential fire hazards.
LOX systeem
The chosen solution is a redundant LOX fire prevention system; and a fire prevention system using our latest generation of nitrogen production units.
The new units have a very compact, but also flexible design that ensures better use of space and energy. The installation is designed in such a way that all components are easily accessible, so that maintenance can be carried out quickly and efficiently.
The system consists of 5 cooperating units to guarantee a sufficient flow with a nitrogen purity of 95%. By blowing the hypoxic air (95% nitrogen) into the cold store, the oxygen level is lowered to a percentage where ignition and propagation of fire is no longer possible.
Why FX Prevent?
One of the main reasons Agristo N.V. opted for the LOX fire prevention system is the unique energy efficiency of our HP-PSA nitrogen generator systems, which are up to 50% more energy efficient than competitors’ installations that use membrane technology or conventional PSA technology.