In any industry, the safety and efficiency of engineered production processes have a major impact on the bottom line. In the food and beverage industry, there’s a lot more than money at stake. Even the slightest production errors can radically affect consumer health and safety, and public trust, once lost, is difficult to regain. The Salas O’Brien team is passionate about community well-being, and we’re proud to promote product quality and compliance through our work for this vital industry.

Salas O’Brien’s engineers have highly practiced expertise working with these important clients. We offer solutions for the processing, mixing, storage, packaging, and transport of products, as well as for various specialized processes like evaporation, pasteurization, and purification. We can provide design, conceptual and preliminary engineering, process optimization and troubleshooting, hygiene zoning, automation and controls, commissioning, and more—everything to ensure your equipment, utilities, and processes are operating the way they’re supposed to and are not compromising quality in any way (product recalls are not on our agenda!). Through these services and others, our team consistently achieves excellent results. But they’re not the only members of our team to make a mark on the industry.

Our work at a Plumrose USA production plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa, helped it achieve an LEED Silver status and Sustainable Plant of the Year from Food Engineering. Plumrose is one of the country’s leading providers of quality packaged meat products, and it manufactures both for its own brand and for private label brands like Walmart’s Great Value. Our design for the plant maximizes efficiency at every opportunity, from motion-sensor lighting to filtration systems for recycling water—initiatives which have resulted in massive energy savings and radical minimization of waste. This increase in automation and efficiency has both reduced costs and bolstered the product quality.  

Another Salas O’Brien success in the food and beverage industry involved engineering and construction management for a new King’s Hawaiian production plant in Oakwood, Georgia. Although the brand’s famous sweet rolls are sold in grocery stores across the nation, this production facility was the company’s first outside of Hawaii and California. The structure features a large production floor and several three-story silos, and our engineers met all its critical mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection design needs. Empowered by Salas O’Brien’s work, the new plant met all the stringent FDA and OSHA requirements for facilities of its size and function.

Facilities like these are vital components of an industry that gives our communities nourishment and variety. As such, these are particularly rewarding projects for our teams, and we’re committed to promoting quality and ensuring compliance as we continue this work for our partners and clients.