If you're buying industrial drums of olive oil for your business, you'll need to plan how you will get the oil out of the packaging and into your production line. It's best to do this before your oil arrives, so we're going to help you prepare.
The natural question at hand is, what kind of pump is best to use with the 55 gallon drums? Well, good question folks. We work with lots of companies that have had to tackle this issue, so we'll give you a bit of our personal insight.
First, we'll tell you our favorite pump (and gush about why we love it so much). Then, we'll pose some questions to your production team to help you decide what kind of pump you should really be going after.
Let's get right down to it...
The Olive Oil Pump We Recommend
This is the Stainless Steel Drum Pump from Uline, Item #H-3864. It is made for oils, it's strong and ideal for food manufacturing settings. It is $109 (or $99 if you order 3 or more). That is a one time purchase though, and you can rotate that pump into each new drum that you open.
Why do we love this one so much? Well, it's easy and self explanitory to use. It's a manual pump, which means that it's less complicated and less apt to break or malfunction. It's food grade stainless steel, and is FDA compliant.
Most importantly, it's made for viscous materials like oils so it will stand up to wear and tear. Our warehouse manager (you know, the one who has to use and pump our oils day in and day out) chose this one as his favorite. So this advice comes from experience.
If you're curious how to set up the pump, here's the step by step instructions. Essentially, the pump is inserted into the bung hole at the top of the drum, secured, and then you can begin pumping.
Other Types of Olive Oil Pumps
There are various types of manual or hand pumps including lever-action, siphon and rotary. There are also automatic drum pumps available as well as spigots that can attach to drums that lay down (but we find these are less common in food production). The stainless steel or plastic pumps are considered best for olive oil, because they are designed for thicker substances.
Across the board, manual pumps typically cost about $30-$150, and you can re-use them in each drum.
Where to Buy
There are a number of places where you can get a similar items-- Uline isn't the only one, though it is a good option. Here's a few recommendations for where to make your purchase:
Here are some suggestions for where you can buy your drum pump:
- Uline (we suggest Item #H3864)
- BestContainers
How To Work With Your Production Team To Choose The Right Pump
Your production team should have a say in what kind of pump you get, because they will be using it on a daily basis. There's many different types of pumps: automatic, manual, regulated etc.
Here are the questions you and your team should answer before making your final pump selection.
- Do we want to manually pump the oil out, or do we prefer that a pump would run automatically?
- What kind of container will we be pumping into? Would a hose connected into our line work easier?
- Is there going to be a set amount of oil that we'll need each time we pump out of the drum? There are also "regulating pumps" which will pump exact volumes out each time.
- Where are we going to store these drums? Do we prefer that they stay upright or lay down?
Want to learn more about packaging? Download our eBook on bulk packaging to learn more and compare all of the packaging options or visit the packaging section of our Bulk Oil Library.
Topics: Packaging
