“Dependable, sanitary and built to last.” These three qualities, certainly desirable attributes in any food-processing equipment, aptly describe the new FMI-BPI Series pumps and grinders. Designed for high-volume sanitary/clean-in-place operation, the custom-made all-stainless steel pumps and grinders are fully automated and easy to operate. What makes them truly unique, however, is the fact that they are developed and built not by an equipment manufacturer, but instead by a food processor."

Headquartered in Dakota Dunes, S.D., BPI is a leading manufacturer of beef trimmings. BPI Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings enhance hamburger patties, lunchmeat, meatballs and numerous other value-added meat products offered by foodservice suppliers and major packers and processors supplying the retail market.

Equipment selection and maintenance long have been a concern to BPI, which aims for the highest safety standards and as little downtime as possible. For many years, however, the company found suitable equipment hard to come by.

The 1993 E. coli breakout at the Jack in the Box burger chain sparked BPI’s interest in an expanded sanitary design, says Eldon Roth, the company’s founder and president. At the same time, pump maintenance issues were eating into production uptime.

BPI began to leverage the expertise of its employees to improve existing equipment. Since then, BPI has greatly expanded its equipment design and assembly operations. It not only has designed and built a good portion its own process equipment, but also has created customized equipment solutions for selected users of its beef trimmings.

The company recently unveiled a state-of-the-art assembly plant in which to assemble stainless steel pumps, grinders and other major equipment. Situated next to its Sioux City processing facility, the assembly plant is supported by a newly constructed machine shop.

“We believe in the non-maintenance of machinery — the overbuilding of machinery so you don’t need [so much] maintenance,” Roth says.

Moreover, the company works to continuously improve its equipment to further boost reliability and to maximize food safety.

“We obsolete our own machinery,” notes Roth.

BPI’s expansion into the equipment assembly arena is good news for refrigerated and frozen food processors, who now can take advantage of technologically enhanced, computer-interfaced equipment with greatly reduced maintenance requirements.

High-sugar-content frozen products such as fruit juices are good candidates for the sturdy all-stainless equipment, as are blended foods such as cheeses and yogurts that start with a large bulk product. Tough applications such as shredded pizza cheeses, in particular, stand to benefit from the grinders’ superior reliability.

The all-stainless pumps feature the largest bearings possible to reduce bearing failures, oversized dowel pins and fasteners to decrease shaft failures, and many other technology improvements designed to maximize processing uptime, says the company. BPI team members design the grinders to work with the specific foods to be processed, under the specific processing conditions, and to interface properly any conveyors, metal detectors and/or other equipment.

All equipment is available through either a lease or purchase option. Moreover, it comes with an expert installation team. Under BPI’s equipment leasing option, any spare parts are covered.

For the ultimate in service, the team is able to connect the equipment to BPI’s sophisticated central control system and offer monitoring and control as a value-added service.  If something goes amiss, BPI then can notify the customer.