Mort Muncher

To whom it may concern

Whilst working as Operations manager for Scottish Sea Farms Ltd I decided that it would be prudent for a large commercial producer to have an ensiling facility that could be deployed to a site to cope with a large scale event mortality.(Such as Jellyfish blooms/algal blooms/Acute PD etc)

I discussed this with Chris and a few ideas were knocked about and he came up with a unit capable of dealing with approx. 10 tonnes of fish per hour. We needed a unit that could be deployed to any site and so it had to be portable, he made it as a modular unit consisting of a hopper unit complete with grinder, a tipping mechanism and an acid dosing pump.

We would deploy these units along with a hired generator and fuel bunker and assemble them on site.

We trialled the unit on some salmon carcasses and were impressed with the speed and efficiency of the unit, we hoped that we would not have to use it, but that it was there if need be

Click to enlarge

Unfortunately we had cause to use it sooner than expected as a site developed an increasing number of daily mortalities to the point where the on-site ensiler could not cope and we had to deploy the new large unit( referred to now as the “Mort Muncher”) It was set up and the discharge pipe from the grinder was connected directly into a bulk tanker, within a short time the first of the salmon mortalities was passing through the unit and it processed the first 1000kg in approx. 6 minutes. The product discharging into the tanker was more of a paste than we had expected as the smaller ensilers seemed to turn the salmon mortalities into thick slurry. The paste is mixed with acid as it exits the grinder and is pumped into the tanker. Chris incorporated a small automatic dosing pump that metered the acid directly from a 1000 Litre IBC again minimising the amount of equipment that needed manual handling.

We estimated that once set up the whole system could be operated by a single person if need be. They would uplift a harvest bin of fish in the forklift, place this onto the tipping area and then operate the control panel to hydraulically tip the bin into the receiving hopper. While this bin was being ground up and discharged into the bulk tanker the operator could remove the empty bin and have the next one in place ready before the first load was finished.

This piece of equipment has proven to be very valuable and is now being requested for other locations by the same company, a testament to the time and effort Chris put into the initial design. I have no hesitation in recommending equipment designed and built by Chris and if you require any further information then please do not hesitate in getting in contact with me.

–  Dave Hutchens, KNOX Marine