1980s · Our History
The Continuous Rotary Sterilizer
One of H.G. Molenaar’s flagship products is the Molenaar Continuous Rotary Sterilizer for canned goods. The first machine was designed and built for a local client in 1978, and by 1981 the company had completed its first sterilizer export project — to the United Kingdom.
Having proved itself on that first UK project, H.G. Molenaar tendered for a very large-capacity machine for a baked-bean canner, also in the United Kingdom — pioneering large-diameter, high-capacity rotary sterilizers, and winning the contract.
This work led to what is still believed to be the largest Rotary Sterilizer ever built anywhere in the world. Undertaken in the late 1980s for a pet-food customer in France, the project comprised eight vessels, each 2.8 metres in diameter and twelve metres long. Although designed in South Africa, sanctions meant most manufacturing was carried out by European sub-contractors under H.G. Molenaar’s supervision, with final assembly by South African technicians in France. The project took more than two years to complete.
