BFM® fitting: How standardised flexible connectors helped Dry Powder Blending company

Allicio Nutrition Ltd upgrades 25+ connection points to BFM® fitting - improving health and safety, reducing changeover time and eliminating product leaks

BFM Global 08/12/2025

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The Challenge

Flexible connectors of many shapes, sizes, materials and media are often used in the production process. This can cause operational challenges and limit optimisation.

Allicio Nutrition Ltd, a UK-based dry powder blending company, produces around 120 tonnes of nutritional products each week at one of its sites. They have around 35 different flexible connectors across 7 Customer Packed Goods (CPG) and Bulk Blending processing lines.

Regular product changes require a team of 3 to clean the lines between each product blend to avoid cross-contamination. When switching from allergens like dairy, a “full clean” is required. This takes around 4 hours for CPG lines and 12 hours for Bulk lines.

During a full clean, each flexible connector is either removed for cleaning or replaced entirely. The connectors vary in size, shape and material but are mostly secured with jubilee clips that are time consuming to remove and re-attach. This means a large portion of the clean is spent on this activity. For example, on Bulk lines, it takes 2 team members 4 hours.

The jubilee clips provided a poor seal and often led to product leaks, increasing both dust levels and cleaning time. To compensate for potential leakage, an extra 2% of product was regularly added to each batch.

ProSpare’s solution

In 2017, the site reached out to ProSpare, looking to make their process cleaner, safer, and more efficient by using BFM® fitting. BFM® fitting offers a dust-tight seal via a wide range of standardised BLUEBAND™ connectors and specially formed spigots, streamlining inventory and simplifying changes.

Over 8 years, ProSpare and Allicio have worked together to upgrade 25+ connection points to BFM® fitting. The Safety, Health, and Environment Coordinator told us:

“BFM® fitting has improved health and safety on site. At one point, our staff were required to wear masks due to dust levels. I’d say BFM® has directly contributed to the team no longer being required to wear masks.

Standardising our flexible connectors has helped massively. BFM® is far quicker to changeover. It takes a quarter of the time to change BFM® connectors compared to ones with jubilee clips and only requires 1 staff member [instead of 2] – freeing the other staff to just focus on cleaning and reduce the time it takes.

Time we spend cleaning, we aren’t making money so reducing how long this takes is critical. There are no product leaks where BFM® is installed, further reducing cleaning time. Also, because there’s no leaks, we no longer add extra product into the batch.”

bfm connectors last longer — *BFM® connectors last longer – Fig 2*

The Seeflex 040E connector was one of the first installed around 6 years ago and is still in great working condition. This success was the catalyst for a wider rollout.

sieve area stays cleaner bfm fitting — Sieve area stays cleaner with BFM® fitting – Fig 1

The previous breather and connector on the sieve did not seal effectively, resulting in regular product leaks and 4.5 hours cleaning each week. With BFM® breathers and connectors, there’s no product leakage, cutting cleaning to 1 hour a week.

adjustable filling with bfm flexi connectors — Adjustable filling with BFM® flexi connectors – Fig 3 & 4

The hoppers under the sieve connect to filling machines that move up and down to adapt to different packaging sizes. With a 3:1 compression ratio, BFM® ‘flexi’ connectors adjust to required lengths, whilst still providing a 100% dust-tight seal.

Allicio are next looking to upgrade the Bulk Blending lines with BFM® fitting Bulk Bag Loaders.

For more information, contact ProSpare Ltd – UK distributor for BFM® fitting:
Visit – www.prospare.co.uk
e-mail – sales@prospare.co.uk
call – 01773 814008

Contact Details

BFM Global

About us

BFM^® Global Ltd is the New Zealand based manufacturer of the BFM^® fitting system, a revolutionary snap-in flexible connector and spigot that eliminates the problems associated with traditional hose clamp systems.

Traditional hose-clamp fittings have been used in manufacturing for more than a century… and the associated problems they bring have just been accepted as standard. Apart from the difficult nature of removing and refitting the hose-clamps, leakage is the main problem. If your process involves pressure or vacuum, any hose-clamped connection is a potential point for product and air leakage.

While hose-clamps are generally a cheap initial solution, the loss of valuable product, daily clean-up costs, and potential associated health and safety issues will, in the long term, significantly affect your bottom-line.

The more cost-effective solution being used by many of the world’s leading manufacturers is the revolutionary BFM^® fitting system.

BFM^® fitting has revolutionised industrial flexible connectors

A BFM^® fitting generally fits between two pieces of machinery, either where a stationary machine connects to a moving one, or where access to product flow is needed. It comprises two steel spigots (or flanges) that are welded to your pipes and a snap-fit flexible, blue-band connector, or sleeve, that seats on the inside of the shaped portion of the two spigots, holding it securely in place.

Because they seal from the inside, BFM^® fittings provide a 100% sealed connection, even if there is pressure or vacuum running through the system. This means no leaks, so no loss of valuable product and a much cleaner, safer and more efficient operating environment.

BFM^®s patented blue band connectors provide superior performance:

100% sealed, no mess, no leaks
Seals tighter under pressure
No product build-up means better hygiene
No tools required for fitting
Snap-in design makes installation easy
Explosion resistant design for added safety
More durable materials last longer
Standardised connector sizes mean you need to keep less stock

The BFM^® fitting is used in a wide variety of applications, especially those involving dry dust or powders, to supersede old hose-clamped systems:

Vibrating & oscillating sifters/sieves
Conveyors & Feeders
Fans
Baghouses
Silos & bin inlet & outlets
Cyclones
Blenders
Vibro tubes
Rotary valves

There is a full range of materials and specific connector designs that offer solutions for virtually any processing application or environment.

Compliant with global food and safety regulations

We pride ourselves in meeting global certifications across food safety, explosion and materials, making us the product of choice across the world. We have a wide variety of products that conform to important global standards such as 3A, USDA, FDA, EC & ATEX and our products and production facility has been certified as both Halal and Kosher compliant.

BFM^® fitting is being used by some of the biggest names in the global food, pharmaceutical, chemical and mineral industries.

The BFM^® fitting range of products are available from more than 50 Authorised Distributors who sell to over 70 countries around the globe – to find a local Distributor, visit www.bfmfitting.com/distributors.