/ Clemens Food Group /

Fueled by a variety of regulatory and market shifts, the pork processing industry has experienced significant change over the past decade. While many pork producers have struggled to adapt, Clemens Food Group embraced these changes and strategically invested in their production capabilities. As a result, this sixth-generation family-owned business saw demand for its brands, including Hatfield, Farm Promise, and Prima Porta, quickly grow, resulting in the need to increase production without sacrificing quality. 

After working with Gray AES’ parent company Gray to build a new state-of-the-art production facility in Coldwater, Michigan, which opened in 2017, Clemens Food Group knew right away that the Gray family of companies would be the perfect fit to manage the design-build of their next expansion at their headquarters in Hatfield, PA. This new smoked pork manufacturing facility needed to be built for high-impact, high-volume production, allowing Clemens to adapt and meet ever-changing market demands. As a result, Gray was contracted to manage the design and construction of the 305,000 s.f. greenfield facility while Gray AES was brought in as the process & packaging design and engineering experts. 

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Setting Up for Success: Diving into the Details and Building Relationships

One practice that consistently sets the Gray AES team apart from other firms is that projects are never started with a standardized solution or approach in mind. Instead, time is invested upfront to develop a complete understanding of all the tasks required, providing a clear understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities within the production lines. This project began with auditing Clemens’ existing facilities to develop a thorough understanding of operations and the details around how their products are made. By evaluating what worked well and what could be improved, processes could be optimized and the most efficient solutions developed. 

Gray AES places a heavy emphasis on developing strong relationships with key project stakeholders, allowing AES engineers to function as an extension of Clemens’  engineering team. This approach was a perfect fit for Clemens as their company also places a heavy emphasis on developing relationships and collaborating with partners. The partnership allowed Clemens to focus on producing the highest-quality pork products and Gray AES on delivering innovative, customized solutions to support the company’s growth.  

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Meeting the Process and Packaging Needs of More than 100 SKUs 

Once all aspects of the project were clearly defined, Gray AES tackled the process and packaging needs for the more than 100 raw and ready-to-eat (RTE) SKUs that needed to be produced in this facility. To meet these needs, every step needed to be flexible, from brine making, injection, massaging, stuffing, smoking/cooking, chilling, slicing, cubing, and primary packaging formats.

Many of these steps were quite complex. For example, at the start of the production process, the correct brine recipe must be used. Gray AES needed to design and coordinate the tanks, piping, and hard processing equipment required to make sure the proper liquid is injected into each product. Plus, with so many SKUs, planning for multiple packaging lines that allowed for a variety of primary packaging formats was required. Each product’s unique packaging needs also needed to be seamlessly integrated into the production flow.

Gray AES managed equipment bid evaluations and awards and worked closely with around 20 vendors to ensure equipment was designed to spec and could be integrated into the line layout and MEP systems. While the investment Clemens made in their process and packaging equipment was more than $80 million, Gray AES was conscious of their budget and helped save Clemens money in other areas by keeping our team extremely small and efficient.

To ensure installation was executed in line with our high level of quality standards and expectations, Gray AES focused on sanitary design, proper ergonomic design, and operational and maintenance ease of access, as well as field installation support. Gray AES additionally managed infrastructure coordination with utilities and helped ensure Clemens met environmental permit requirements for tasks such as capturing exhaust from their smokehouses. 

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Leveraging Our Expertise in Hygienic Design

While all food and beverage manufacturers emphasize product and employee safety, Clemens wanted to be sure hygienic design was at the heart of every process and design decision made. With decades working in the food and beverage industry, Gray AES has gained unmatchable experience in hygienic design practices, which ensured that this new facility was designed in a way that would eliminate as many contamination points as possible. 

Some of the design decisions made by Gray and Gray AES included the following:

• Separation of raw and ready-to-eat operations
• Use of stainless steel cladding to line the interior walls of the facility
• Collaboration with equipment manufacturers and fabricators to ensure equipment was designed to be easy to clean, including elimination of any niches that may be harborage points for bacteria to grow‍

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On-Time and On-Budget 

With this new facility, Clemens can reach an annual production capacity of up to 100 million pounds of smoked meat products, as well as 6,000 pounds per hour of fully cooked, individually quick-frozen (IQF) sausage links and patties. As a result of the collaborative relationship forged between Clemens, Gray, and Gray AES, the project was executed on time and on budget, even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This facility's design excellence, focus on food safety, and operational efficiency did not go unnoticed—Clemens Hatfield was named the 2023 Plant of the Year by Food Engineering magazine, a testament to the success of this partnership.

‍Learn more about this project on Gray.com.