20-Ton Flake Ice Machine Project for Commercial Fishing in Algeria

Freshly caught seafood needs cooling long before it reaches a processing plant or cold storage. For our customer in Algeria, this meant having a reliable source of flake ice available close to daily fishing operations.

We supplied a KP200 industrial flake ice machine, rated at 20 tons per 24 hours, to support fresh catch cooling, transportation and seafood preservation.

Unlike a seafood-processing project where most ice is consumed inside a factory, this installation focuses on an earlier stage of the cold chain: keeping sufficient ice available around the fishing and catch-handling process.

That operating environment shaped the project from the beginning.

Bringing Ice Production Closer to the Catch

For a commercial fishing company, the time between harvest and refrigerated storage matters.

The catch may need to be handled, iced and transported before it reaches the next controlled-temperature stage. Waiting until seafood arrives at a processing facility to begin cooling would leave an important gap in the cold chain.

The customer therefore needed industrial-scale ice production that could support cooling soon after the catch was landed and continue protecting the seafood during transportation.

Flake ice was selected for this application because of the way it works with fresh seafood.

Koller flake ice is thin and loose, with a large contact area. It can be spread over fish and other seafood and settle around irregular product surfaces more easily than large, rigid pieces of ice. This makes it particularly suitable for applications where the cooling medium needs to remain in close contact with the catch.

For fishing operations, that physical characteristic is more important than the appearance of the ice.

The objective is straightforward: get cooling to the seafood as early as practical and maintain it while the catch moves through the next stages of handling.

Why the Project Uses a KP200

The KP200 provides a rated production capacity of 20,000 kg of flake ice per 24 hours under standard operating conditions.

For this project, capacity was not selected simply according to the size of the customer’s company. The more relevant consideration was the amount of ice required to support daily fishing and seafood-preservation operations.

A commercial fishing business can experience concentrated periods of ice demand. When catch arrives, a large quantity of ice may be required within a shorter handling window rather than being consumed evenly over 24 hours.

This makes the relationship between ice production, available ice inventory and catch-handling schedule important.

The KP200 gives the customer a dedicated industrial source of flake ice rather than relying entirely on ice transported from another production site.

That changes the logistics of cooling.

Instead of moving all of the required ice toward the catch from an external supplier, the customer can produce its own ice as part of the fishing operation.

For a business handling fresh seafood every day, this provides greater control over when ice is available and how it is used.

From Factory Testing to On-Site Operation

Before shipment, the KP200 was prepared and tested at our factory to verify the refrigeration system and ice-making operation.

For an overseas industrial project, however, factory testing is only one stage.

The machine also has to operate with the actual power supply, water conditions, cooling system and working environment at the customer’s site.

Our team therefore supported the project through installation and commissioning, including equipment setup, refrigeration-system checks, trial production and operating guidance.

After commissioning, the machine reached stable production and entered daily service for the customer’s fishing and seafood-preservation operations.

This step is particularly relevant in commercial fishery projects because the ice machine is not operating independently from the rest of the business. Its production schedule has to support the way seafood is actually caught, handled and transported.

A Different Kind of Seafood Ice Project

This Algeria installation adds a different type of project to our flake ice references.

In a seafood-processing factory, ice is often used around sorting, processing and temporary storage.

Here, the priority moves closer to the beginning of the seafood cold chain.

The customer needed ice for commercial fishing and fresh catch preservation, so the project was built around having industrial-scale flake ice production available for those operations.

The completed KP200 installation provides up to 20 tons of rated daily production and gives the customer its own source of flake ice for catch cooling and transportation.

For similar commercial fishing projects, we look beyond daily tonnage alone. Catch volume, peak landing periods, ice consumption, storage requirements, power supply, water conditions and the distance between ice production and the catch all influence the final configuration.

That is also why two customers handling seafood may require very different ice systems.

For this project in Algeria, the answer was a Koller KP200 flake ice machine for commercial fishing, bringing a 20-ton/day source of cooling ice closer to where the seafood cold chain begins.