A division of McCain Foods Limited, McCain Foods (Canada) is the Canadian division of the global frozen food giant that boasts a footprint in more than 160 countries. One of McCain’s eight Canadian production facilities is a French fry production plant located in Carberry (Manitoba) where about 430 million pounds of locally grown potatoes are processed every year.

In 2022, CIMCO Refrigeration (CIMCO) replaced four of the Carberry facility’s ammonia condensers with a brand-new evaporative condenser. This was done as part of McCain’s $75 million infrastructure investment in its Portage la Prairie and Carberry facilities. The aim of this investment, initially announced in 2018, was to further strengthen the company’s potato processing presence in Western Canada.

During the condenser replacement, to minimize the impact on production for the customer, CIMCO did as much of the preparation work as possible before the facility shut down, prefabricating various parts of the system. The onsite replacement was completed in only one month. 

As part of this project, CIMCO pumped down the system to remove the four evaporative condensers and related equipment, including pumps, drains and piping. CIMCO then supplied and installed a new two-cell evaporative condenser, three condenser water pumps, as well as the water piping, fittings, valves and supports required for system operation.