As a D&C project, Oomiak has undertaken a detailed and thorough engineering process to provide a centralised refrigeration system for the eventual 124 tenants to be housed at the new 55 hectare site. The centralised plant will deliver individual cooling to each tenancy, and will provide environmental and cost benefits over the more traditional model.

Oomiak has joined forces with Melbourne mechanical services company A.G. Coombs to refrigerate the market with a vast majority of the high level field glycol pipework installation having being installed, pressure tested and insulated by the AG Coombs team. Underground pipe systems have been installed for some time now and are ready for the central plant connections and the electrical roll out through the field is progressing.

Oomiak’s workshop pre-fabrication of major components was completed in October and included the in-house manufacture of three compressor sets and accumulator and plate heat exchanger assemblies, each rated at approximately 2500kW @ -10°C.

Final commissioning is due for completion toward the end of this year.

David Lange, Oomiak’s Project manager is looking forward to the coming months “with building works and site installation progressing, the magnitude of the project from a refrigeration perspective has become more tangible. As we move into the central refrigeration plant fit out phase, the team remains genuinely excited about the project as a whole, and are focused as always on delivering a first class system.”

Foodbank South Australia is a not for profit organisation which aims to redistribute surplus food stocks from industry and primary producers to South Australians in need.

Leigh Royans, GM Special Projects for Foodbank SA, estimates the new Riverland Foodbank centre will supply two hundred thousand meals to local welfare groups within the first year of opening.

“We expect in the first year around one hundred thousand kilograms of food will be routed through this distribution centre to help marginalised people across the Riverland.

“In round numbers that would represent approximately two hundred thousand meals. This will provide substantial flow-on benefit for the Riverland welfare sector, allowing them to stretch their limited food-relief budgets much further, as they work to underpin the needs of the disadvantaged across the community“

The new cold room will be used for the storage and distribution of a range of vegetable, packaged goods and dairy products.

Oomiak’s scope of works included:

• Construction of a sandwich panel insulated enclosure
• Supply and installation of a refrigeration system to adequately meet the cooling loads including room evaporator, acoustic housed condensing unit package, interconnecting pipework, insulation and supports, room temperature control and all associated electrics

Oomiak already provides a range of services to Foodbank in South Australia and Victoria on a no-fee basis, including preventative maintenance, design and project management.

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We are looking forward to exhibiting our knowledge in poultry related refrigeration. Oomiak’s experience within the poultry industry in recent years has been very strong and has included:

• The design, installation and commissioning of mechanical services (cooling, heating and air distribution) for the Baiada Tamworth Hatchery.
• Refrigeration and air conditioning installations and maintenance at various poultry processing plants
• Refrigeration and air conditioning installations and maintenance at egg processing facilities

Come past and say hi, 20-23 May 2012 – Gold Coast Convention Centre.

For more details visit the
Pix 2012 website.

After five years we thought it was time we revisited our online presence, which you’ll see is brighter and better.

And it now incorporates Web 2.0 technology, improving the way we communicate with our customers, both new and potential. The site is also more user-friendly, giving visitors easy access to the information they need.

We especially love our new home page, which better reflects our energy. It flows on to a constant stream of our latest projects, and a blog feed pulling in the latest posts of project wins, news, events and anything else of interest.

Simply, right up front visitors have an overview on everything that’s happening at Oomiak.

The category filter now embedded in the projects page enables visitors to easily sort through all the different projects we’ve worked on. For example, anyone interested in our cold storage projects can select from the left hand side and all the relevant projects for that category will be displayed.

As well as the blog keeping everyone up to date with all the news at Oomiak, it gives us an avenue to communicate informally with our visitors, opening up another line of communication. You’ll see the new ‘comments’ box below each of the items—so feel free to let us know what you think.

We’d like to thank Marie Danvers for her direction, copy and communication strategies implemented throughout the website. And, of course, our web designer Heath Vogt, who has provided us with what we think is a great website that is right up there in terms of modern web technologies.

Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre

Come past and say hi, we’ll be at at stand A26 at Foodpro Sydney 2011 10 – 13 July 2011

Be prepared to be amazed, informed and inspired by the range of food processing products and services on show at foodpro 2011. Form more information about this years event head over to the website: www.foodproexh.com

Another element that now needs to be considered is the choice of refrigerant, with global warming concerns pushing governments around the world to act. As a result Australia, for its part, has introduced a National Greenhouse Emissions Reporting Scheme (NGER) and is on the verge of introducing an ETS, which has serious implications for the refrigeration industry. Cold store operators are now being forced to consider the carbon footprint of their facility along with other operating costs, as the ETS will not only penalise inefficient refrigeration plant and store operation, but also plants with HFC and HCFC Freon refrigerants.

Oomiak has recognised the need of cold store operators to address these issues, and has been at the forefront of the development and application of energy efficient environmentally friendly solutions to the food distribution industry.

‘the smartest refrigeration engineer in the country’

Not our words, but we agree.

They were first made about our Director Business Strategy 20 years ago by RWTA legend Ken Scott, and picked up recently by RWTA Chairman Peter Quinn. He repeated Ken’s statement when awarding Mark the prestigious Greg Montague Award, which recognises Mark’s outstanding contribution to the Australian cold chain industry.

And where we demonstrate out industry credentials, often by putting members of our team up for awards. Matthew Mungall was our representative in the 2010 Frank Vale Award, which recognises exceptional achievement by young people in the Australian cold chain.

It means every aspect of operations under the microscope, especially production processes. Many industries, such as wine and cold storage, have another critical driver—environmental responsibility. Our role in this is to apply our skills and knowledge of industries and products to projects, cutting customers’ costs and contributing positively to environmental sustainability at the same time.