The Challenge
A food processing facility producing dried snack products was experiencing batch rejections due to moisture-related quality failures — texture failure, premature packaging condensation, and in two incidents, product recall-level moisture content. The quality team had investigated raw materials, storage conditions, and processing temperatures. The compressed air supply had not been tested.
The facility had two refrigerant air dryers, both on calendar-based service intervals. One had not been serviced in 14 months and had a failed dew point sensor. The other was undersized for summer demand load. Compressed air systems generate moisture through the compression process — without adequate drying and monitoring, wet air enters the production process, creating a direct contamination risk in food applications.
What Changed
Continuous dew point monitoring at three critical points: after each dryer and at the packaging line air inlet. Alerts when dew point exceeded −20°C (food-grade specification).
The monitoring immediately identified that the failed dryer was delivering air at −8°C dew point — far above specification. The packaging line was receiving wet air on approximately 40% of operating days, specifically during high-humidity periods when the undersized dryer was overloaded. The failed dryer was repaired and the undersized unit replaced. Dew point monitoring was retained as permanent QC instrumentation.
Results
consistently
and corrected
compressed air quality
“Compressed air quality is a food safety issue, not just an energy issue. When air contacts product or product-contact surfaces, its moisture content becomes part of the quality specification. Continuous dew point monitoring is not a sophisticated intervention — it is a basic QC requirement for any food facility using compressed air — but it is frequently absent because the connection between air quality and product quality is not obvious until there is a failure.”