Chilean lamb processing project wins national engineering award

November 2008

A new lamb processing plant in Chile has taken out the food, bioprocess and chemical award at the 2008 New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards at TE PAPA in Wellington last night.

GHD New Zealand Ltd one the award for designing a new state of the art Carnes Agromar lamb processing plant in Patagonia, Chile.

Leading edge New Zealand design techniques and meat processing technologies brought the plant new standards of food safety to the region. The plant has lifted its meat processing capability to a new level, comparable with any export facility in the world.  

The original 1,000 lamb processing plant meant products had insufficient "shelf-; life” to makes the 2,000km journey to Santiago. The new redeveloped facility designed by a team of New Zealand engineers achieved a quantum improvement, delivering food safety standards for export quality chilled lamb. Each area of the plant has highly sophisticated hygienic operating systems.

“The design and installation of the new improved lamb processing plant was complex and the project required considerable creativity and ingenuity”, said David Elms, Convenor of the Category Awards judging panel.

“The technological solutions had not previously been implemented in Chile and the harsh conditions of Southern Patagonia, along with language barriers, posed many challenges to the team of engineers,” he says.

The fourth New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.

The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers of New Zealand (ACENZ) and the Institution of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (IPENZ.)

For more information contact:
Chief Executive, IPENZ, Engineers New Zealand.
Mobile: 021 311 879
DDI: 04 474 8935
Prepared by Julie Buchanan, Communications Manager, IPENZ, Engineers NZ,
Mobile: 021 479 885, DDI: 04 473 2028