What does it really take to build a dust collection system that performs reliably from day one and holds up for the long haul?
This case study looks at how early collaboration between Wonderful Foods y Baghouse.com, with expert engineered design and careful installation came together to support a demanding food processing environment.
Transformación digital
Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds is known as the “world’s largest grower and processor of almonds and pistachios.” …And we can centainly confirm this! The Lost Hills facility is the company’s primary processing site, housing the firm’s largest pistachio and almonds processing facility.
Their Wonderful Pistachios brand is widely distributed across the U.S. and commonly found in grocery stores, airports, and retail outlets nationwide. To support continued growth, the company invested in a new pistachio processing facility in Lost Hills, California.
As with many large-scale food processing operations, the expansion introduced significant dust control challenges. Matt Coughlin, Owner of Baghouse says: “Pistachio processing generates large volumes of fine organic dust that can quickly become an indoor air quality issue and a combustible dust hazard if not properly managed.”
Wonderful Foods engaged Baghouse.com early in the project to design a dust collection system that could scale with production while meeting safety, operational, and maintenance requirements.
"My experience working with Baghouse.com was very good. The design aspect was excellent—really well done. The installation itself was good as well. It was very easy to work with Matt and Dominick from the design aspects to the final installation."
Scope of Work
The project scope covered the complete design, supply, and installation of a centralized dust collection system serving approximately 25 process machines, including aspirators and mixers, distributed across the facility.
In total, the system consisted of three rotary arm valve reverse air style baghouses (also sometimes called reverse jet). This style of baghouse is generally a good fit for applications containing nuts and grains, since its easier for the dust to blow off and remove off the filters, and this cleaning method is gentler on the filters. It is also a little cheaper to run a fan to blow air back into the bags than to maintain an air compressor like in the Pulse Jet cleaning system. Pulse jet style baghouses can also be used for this application, but Wonderful chose to go with a reverse air style baghouse, since they had many more of these collectors at the facility and they were comfortable using this technology.
We also installed ground-mounted system fans, combustible dust safety equipment and a fully engineered ductwork system tailored to the process, providing a combined airflow capacity of approximately 170,000 CFM. Baghouse.com also provided a 51,000 CFM makeup unit to maintain neutral pressure inside the processing facility.
Challenges
- ❗ Large size of the project
- ❗ Several docen process machines that required multiple pickups
- ❗ Customer requested us to connect all these process machines with custom ductwork. However, during the course of the project, the location of these machines changed multiple times, which required us to completely reconfigure the layout of the ductwork after the project was already on its way.
- ❗ After the ductwork design was finalized, the ductwork was shipped to the site, and upon learning about the completely new equipment layout, we had to adapt the ductwork to the new layout reusing every piece of ducting and minimize the amount of new ducting that needed to be fabricated. Closely coordinating with our install crew, we were able to completely change the routing of the ductwork and connect to the machines in their new location without wasting any piece of duct.
- ❗ An additional challenge was working alongside the other contractors trades and equipment providers. The customer was building a new facility, installing new equipment and services, and this required us to coordinate with more than a docen trades, service providers and manufacturers so everyone was able to work unobstructed and still meet the project deadline.
- ❗ The project timeline spanned roughly one year from purchase order to final installation, driven largely by the customer’s construction schedule and phased equipment startup.
solución
Besides the three rotary arm reverse air baghouses and the ground-mounted fans, we were aware that given the combustible nature of pistachio shells, we needed to include in the design combustible dust equipment. We designed the system with NFPA-compliant combustible dust safety equipment, including explosion isolation valves and explosion vents. These elements were engineered into the layout from the beginning, rather than added later, allowing the system to meet safety expectations without compromising performance.
To maintain proper airflow and building balance, a 51,000 CFM makeup air unit was installed in Building 1 to support proper ventilation and system performance. This ensured that air removed by the dust collectors was replaced in a controlled manner, preserving capture efficiency at hoods and preventing uncontrolled infiltration.
The ductwork system was engineered to maintain proper conveying velocities.
Installation Challenges
Like most new construction projects, this one came with its fair share of coordination challenges. Multiple trades were working on tight schedules, which meant the installation needed close attention to stay on track and flexibility on our part. Keeping the field work aligned with the engineered ductwork design was especially important to avoid things like unnecessary restrictions, abrupt transitions, or air leaks that could have chipped away at the system’s overall performance.
Additional challenges included designing and installing custom intake manifolds and ductwork for several unique machine connections that were not part of the original equipment layout. In some areas, ductwork had to be re-routed to accommodate building support structures that differed from early construction drawings. Close coordination between the installation team, engineering, and the customer allowed these challenges to be addressed without impacting system performance or project timelines.
"Now that the project is completed, the system is running great. This installation greatly increased production capacity. There are a few items we’re still working through, but we’re actively addressing those issues. Because we are located in a very remote area, coordinating support and assistance on-site was sometimes challenging. For our next project, we would like this coordination to be smoother. But I would absolutely recommend working with Baghouse.com."
Outcome and Conclusion
Once commissioned, the dust collection system performed as intended. Airborne dust levels were effectively controlled throughout the facility and the system was able to operate continuously without requiring excessive manual intervention or aggressive cleaning cycles. Maintenance demands were reduced, and the system became a stable, reliable part of the production process.
Dominick Dal Santo, Baghouse expert involved in this project said: “This project was a great example of why dust collection and safety really need to be treated as one complete system…especially in food processing, where combustible dust risks are quite common. By bringing us in early in the project, Wonderful Foods ended up with a dust collection system that not only supports their expansion, but is built to perform reliably and safely for the long haul.”
In summary, the things that worked well in this project were:
- ✅ The customer engaged early in the design process
- ✅ The customer understood what they needed
- ✅ We supplied everything to turn key installation
- ✅ We were flexible and adaptable to make adjustments as the project changed or progressed
- ✅ We designed a system that had extra capacity giving room to the customer to adapt it as the needs and process change.
