Epstein teamed with Ruiz Foods, the largest manufacturer of hand-held frozen Mexican entrées in the world, to provide DesignBuild services for the remodeling, renovation and adaptive re-use of a vacant 262,000 square foot Pillsbury Foods plant into a frozen Mexican entrée production facility.
The scope of work included coordination and installation of all process equipment, the replacement of the aging sanitary and process infrastructure, upgrading all site utilities including new electrical and natural gas services to meet new refrigeration and process equipment demands, conversion of a 48,000 square foot 32° cooler into a -10° freezer, construction of a new boiler room and refrigeration room, and the installation of new state of the art" automated process equipment for production, packaging and distribution of a wide variety of frozen Burritos, Taquitos and Roller Grill products.
The project included 29,000 square feet of administrative/welfare space, 48,000 square feet of freezer space, 23,000 square feet of refrigerated space, 60,000 square feet of USDA food processing space and 24,000 square feet of product storage and loading docks.
Epstein's MEP engineers revamped the two existing 100-ton chilled and tower water systems with the addition of all new recirculation and transfer pumps, new stainless steel accumulation tanks and an all new control system. All the chillers and condensers were rebuilt and all the carbon steel piping was replaced with stainless steel piping. In addition, all valves were rebuilt and or replaced as needed and expansion tanks were replaced due to materials of construction.
