The Citrusvil industrial complex has two lemon processing plants, with a total grinding capacity of 350,000 tons of fruit per campaign. Both are equipped with cutting-edge technology that allows us to develop customized solutions, and allows us to advance research to constantly improve our value chain.

With the aim of accompanying productive growth and product diversification, technological modernization and infrastructure investment in each campaign becomes indispensable in the industry.

Every year, at Citrusvil we work to convert our industry and make it increasingly sustainable, using more efficient resources and promoting the adoption of clean and environmentally responsible technologies and processes, also seeking to always ensure the safety and quality of products and respond to the needs of our customers and the market in general.

In 2019, one of the most important investments was destined to the construction of a new shell deposit and a new cold chamber for juice and pulp. These works, in addition to increasing our storage capacity, give us the possibility of maintaining a strict control of hygiene, conservation and safety, ensuring the quality of the products.

“The availability of greater own storage implies, on the one hand, a considerable saving in logistics and, on the other, an assured control over our final product”

Marcelo Pérez
Head of Plant B

In the oil production process, 3 mini e-BOE (extractors) were incorporated in each industrial plant, seeking to gain efficiency in the recovery of this derivative. In this way, we managed to maximize the yield by capturing a large part of the remaining oil after the first extraction, while increasing the grinding capacity of fruit per hour according to the needs of the campaign.

“By adding these equipment we increase efficiency, getting approximately 200gr more oil for each ton of lemon, and gain flexibility, allowing us to process more fruit in less time” — said Alberto Galván, Head of Plant A. “In our plant In addition, a high performance centrifuge was incorporated, with direct transmission for oil separation, which allows us to cover the additional volumes of emulsion, and minimize the loss of the same in the process” — Galván added.


Likewise, in Plant B a new vacuum filter was put into operation in the lowering room, in order to increase the filtering speed in the sector, and thus accompany the industrial process in the provision of oil, in turn achieving an optimization in capacity and time.

“This incorporation generated a lack of physical space, so we had to carry out a rearrangement of the structures without increasing the work surface,” said the Plant Manager.


As for the juice, a falling film evaporator, with a capacity of 30,000 l / hr, was added to Plant A. This change of technology allows to obtain a better quality product, and enables the production of juices of other characteristics, such as the 550GPL concentrate, generating energy savings in the cooling of the product, which reduces steam consumption by 30% . In Plant B an update of the centrifuge park was carried out through the annexation of a new equipment, which gives us greater flexibility in the search for solutions to accompany the client in the development of products with specific qualities, such as the new low pulp set and low sedimentation.

As a result of all these incorporations, it was necessary to make an adaptation of the electrical services to cover the consumption needs. In the two plants a repowering of the transformer substations was carried out, increasing the installed electrical power in Plant A by 60%, replacing the three isolation transformers with oil of 1000KVA each, with new technology of more efficient consumption, with Dry insulation and 1600KVA each. As for Plant B, a fifth 1000KVA transformer was added, increasing the installed power by 25%.


2020 Projection

Peel: A new press will be incorporated in the washing sector, with the double objective of obtaining a juice of differential characteristics (High Ratio), and reducing the values ​​of sugars in the peel for the optimization of the final product (dehydrated pectin peel) ). In turn, a modification will be carried out in the compactors of dehydrated shell, incorporating a menu of options with variables of pressure and filling cycles, in order to make the weighing and size of the bags more efficient.

Juice: The pulp washing room will be adapted to incorporate a system for deburring the sweet juice obtained in the shell washing sector. Likewise, the capacity of the recovery plant for the discarding of clarified juice will be expanded, allowing to recover the entire rejection of the Ultrafiltration system.

Water: A new Reverse Osmosis plant will be installed, which will increase the volume of filtered water, and allow the supply of new processes and requirements in industry with high quality water.