COMPRESSED AIR, VACUUM, AND GENERATORS At Santa Maria’s Milton Keynes facility, best known for producing fajita kits, seasonings, salsas and tortillas, nitrogen is an essential part of the production process. It is used in the final product as a 30% filler gas within modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) as well as to blanket bulk silos, protecting ingredients from oxidation and helping maintain shelf life and product quality. Until recently, that nitrogen was supplied in liquid form and delivered to site throughout the year. As part of a targeted capital investment project, aimed at reducing environmental impact while strengthening operational control, Santa Maria UK – part of the Paulig Group - began exploring whether generating its own nitrogen on site could provide both sustainability and financial benefits. Working in partnership with Atlas Copco and compressor installation and servicing specialist T&G Compressors, the company has now transitioned to an on-site nitrogen generation system supported by new compressed air and air treatment equipment. The result is an estimated carbon reduction of 12 tonnes of CO2 per year. Rethinking purity and supply Santa Maria’s previous model relied on bulk liquid nitrogen produced off site and transported via lorry to Milton Keynes on a regular basis. While dependable, it carried both a logistical and environmental cost associated with energy-intensive production and recurring deliveries. It also raised an important technical question about what purity of nitrogen was required. Bulk liquid nitrogen is typically supplied at 99.999% purity. For food packaging applications, however, regulatory requirements focus on oxygen content rather than ultra-high purity. To qualify as food grade, nitrogen must contain less than 1 per cent oxygen, meaning any gas above 99 per cent purity meets the required standard for modified atmosphere packaging and silo blanketing. Atlas Copco therefore sized the on-site NGP+ system to deliver 99.5% purity. This provides a clear compliance margin above the food grade threshold, while avoiding the additional compressed air demand and energy consumption associated with producing ultrahigh purity nitrogen that the process does not require. Higher nitrogen purity requires greater compressed air input and longer adsorption cycles in PSA systems, increasing power consumption. By generating nitrogen to the required specification rather than the maximum possible purity, Santa Maria UK benefits from improved operating efficiency and lower lifecycle energy demand. The configuration also enabled the use of smaller equipment, reducing the overall capital investment and delivering a more compact footprint within the factory. From an environmental perspective, the impact of removing bulk supply is measurable. Based on the site’s requirement of 17 Nm3/h over 8000 operating hours per year, emissions linked to liquid nitrogen production and delivery totalled 25,079 kg of CO2 annually. By contrast, the new on-site nitrogen generator, operating over the same period, is set to produce annual emissions 38 HYDRAULICS & PNEUMATICS July/August 2026 www.hpmag.co.uk Santa Maria UK cuts CO2 with smarter nitrogen supply As part of a sustainability investment at its Milton Keynes production facility, Santa Maria UK has switched from delivered liquid nitrogen to on-site nitrogen generation from Atlas Copco, reducing carbon emissions associated with its nitrogen supply by an estimated 12 tonnes of CO 2 a year while improving operational efficiency and lowering running costs. H&P reports. of 12,747 kg of CO2. The transition therefore represents an overall carbon reduction of approximately 49%. “We were looking at ways to make a genuine environmental improvement,” says Paul Godfrey, Project Engineer at Paulig Group. “When you consider the emissions linked to producing and transporting liquid nitrogen, moving to on-site generation made clear sense. Just as importantly, the system delivers the purity we require for food production, comfortably above the 99% threshold, without producing gas to a higher specification than the process demands.” Specifying a resilient solution Following an initial site assessment – conducted by T&G Compressors - and a review of gas usage data, Atlas Copco specified an NGP12+ PSA nitrogen generator, capable of delivering up to 17 Nm3/h at 99.5% purity. The installation was
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