ConAgra, City of Sidney, Ohio Use Flo-Dar to Manage Flows

When ConAgra Foods Inc.- Frozen Foods Group located in Sidney, OH had a requirement to monitor their facility's wastewater flows, the local municipality recommended that they take a look at a new flowmeter manufactured by Marsh-McBirney, Inc. (MMI).  ConAgraâs Frozen Foods Group produces and markets packaged frozen foods for grocery, foodservice, and special market customers such as club stores and supercenters.  Popular brand name products include Banquet, Morton, Chun King, Patio, Marie Callenderâs and Healthy Choice, just to name a few.  ConAgra is a Fortune 100 company and is one of the largest and fastest-growing frozen foods companies in America.  Acclaimed as one of the 'firstä in frozen food offerings with the introduction of the Banquet Pot Pie in 1953, ConAgra continuously receives recognition for their award winning innovation and state-of-the-art techniques utilized in the frozen meals industry.

Joe DePetro of Chesley Associates, MMIâs local representative, recalls meeting with the City of Sidney about the Flo-Dar flowmeter.  The city in turn recommended that ConAgra take a look at this flowmeter for their new sewage monitoring application.  A compelling requirement for the project was the need for a highly accurate flowmeter since the collected flow data would be used for billing purposes.  ConAgra would need to provide the city with flow readings for wastewater discharges leaving their facility for processing at the cityâs wastewater treatment plant (wwtp).  In turn, the city would use the flow readings to determine sewage treatment fees owed by the ConAgra facility.. One of MMIâs latest flowmeter innovations, the Flo-Dar flowmeter, provides a revolutionary approach to open channel flow monitoring.  By combining digital doppler radar velocity sensing technology with ultrasonic pulse echo level sensing, Flo-Dar remotely monitors open channel flows.  The Flo-Dar sensor is installed above the flow stream eliminating confined space entry concerns as well as costly maintenance issues associated with submerged style flow sensors.  The sensor can be easily removed and reinstalled from street level with the use of a sensor installation/retrieval tool saving you both time and money.  Flo-Dar transmits a digital doppler radar beam that interacts with the fluid and reflects back signals at a different frequency than that which was transmitted. These reflected signals are compared with the transmitted frequency.  The resulting frequency shift provides an accurate measure of the velocity and the direction of the flow. Level is detected by ultrasonic pulse echo. Flow is then calculated based on the Continuity Equation:

Q = V x A, Where Q = Flow, V = Average Velocity and A = Area

Two Flo-Dar Model 464 Flowmeters were purchased by ConAgra in the spring of 2002.  The Model 464 is a permanent DC powered flowmeter offered in the Flo-Dar family of products.  Prior to purchasing the Flo-Dar flowmeters, deduct meters were used on the plantâs mixers and other similar equipment used in their process to determine water use inside the facility.  The amount of water used in the product was determined by the deduct meters and is exempt from the cityâs wastewater processing fees.  The corresponding amount was then subtracted from the wastewater flow totals processed by the cityâs WWTP. According to DePetro, ConAgra had never used actual flowmeters for wastewater flow monitoring prior to purchasing the Flo-Darâs.   When ConAgraâs facility underwent a recent plant sizing upgrade, it was determined that the deduct meters would need to be replaced with a more accurate means of calculating the wastewater flow amounts being discharged from the plant.  The Flo-Dar meters were installed in two separate channels on the ConAgra property.

DePetro concludes, 'ConAgra is very happy with their purchase.  Elimination of confined space entry coupled with the ease of meter accessibility is a real plus for them.ä  ConAgra Foods, an innovator in an industry known for offering customer convenience, recognized the problem-solving convenience designed into the Flo-Dar flowmeters.