Bakehouse welcomes bacteria

Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses operates over 50 franchised stores across Victoria. The company is located in a groundbreaking food manufacturing plant in Melbourne’s North West growth corridor, which was designed with energy minimisation and environmental stewardship clearly in mind.

Ferguson Plarre approached Chemsearch for assistance with its grease trap, which was accumulating a heavy layer of fats, oils and greases (FOG) within a few days of pumpout. The water authority had directed a monthly pumpout of the main grease trap and bimonthly pumpout of the secondary trap. These pumpouts were costing the company $60,000 per year. In addition, infrastructure damage was starting to occur as acidic conditions attacked the concrete grease trap.

Chemsearch’s solution was to install the BioAMP biological drain network treatment system that provides just-in-time delivery of active FreeFlow bacteria, which contains five different types of bacteria that attack food sources and turn them into water and CO₂ and in turn, generate more bacteria. FreeFlow eats up FOG so that they will not resolidify. The Ferguson Plarre facility began BioAMP daily dosing one hour after the final washdown for the day.

The result of the new system included odour reduction, reduced FOG build-up and reduced infrastructure damage. Grease trap pumpout frequency was then able to be extended from once per month to every three months, saving $32,800 per year.