Watson-Marlow keeps the flavour pumping

When a large manufacturer of drink machines approached Watson-Marlow they were seeking a solution to the need to enhance requirements in an installed base of ice-cream/milkshake machines. Their customer, a major fast food restaurant, wanted to introduce a new type of milkshake that would be more flavourful and taste more “home made”. The strawberry shakes would have bits of strawberry, the chocolate - pieces of cocoa etc.

An automated high-volume milk shake machine consists of two fluid paths. One is the ice cream mixture and the other is the flavouring syrup. When the lever is pressed the ice cream mixture is pumped and the correct volume of syrup is injected and mixed with the ice cream as it is being pumped into the cup. The customer’s existing system required frequent recalibration to work properly and would not be able to handle the solids in the new flavouring due to clogging and other plumbing components which were too small. The soft solids would be as large as ¼-inch. After much design and testing peristaltic pumps were the pump of choice:

- they can easily pump solids - the design offers superior hygiene - they maintain their accuracy for long periods of time - servicing requirements are minimal - they are self-priming and can easily pull the viscous syrup

In order to bulletproof tubing loading from the standard design, Watson-Marlow’s product development team traveled on site with a design proposal for a tube-element pump. This guaranteed the tubing would be inserted correctly, resulting in perfect alignment and tube tensioning every time. With the help of Watson-Marlow, this large customer found their perfect pump solution. The milk shake machine now has a very low incidence of downtime, resulting in increased profitability… not to mention the new flavours increased sales by up to 900% in some stores!

Find out about the Watson-Marlow OEM pumps range.