Packing solutions speeds beetroot revival
07 January 2009
Ishida Europe has designed and installed a complete packing line for beetroot into trays at the Saint-Aignan-des-Gués factory of French vegetable producer Allaire
As a tasty, healthy and inexpensive product, free from preservatives, rich in vitamins, and low in calories, beetroot has become very fashionable. Its growing popularity means the vegetable now accounts for around 58% of Allaire's production and this high demand led to a need to increase the speed of the packing line to maximise production throughput.
Key to the success of the new line is an Ishida multihead weigher, the CCW- R-216B-D/30-WP, which feeds product into a Multivac thermoformer. The 16-head weigher features advanced Ishida technology - including Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), an enhanced Anti-Floor Vibration (AFV) system, a high speed 5-stage digital filter, and a new combination calculation algorithm using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Technology - that delivers high speeds, excellent accuracy and efficiency levels close to 100%. As a result, line speeds have increased from 72-120 packs per minute.
The weigher is also a waterproof model to allow fast and easy cleaning of all contact parts. In addition, the new line includes a hydraulic lift-and-tip hopper to aid product handling, product elevator, vibratory feeder, weighing platform with washing rack, and a dipping funnel beneath the weigher to ensure accurate and spillage-free placement of the product into the trays.
Allaire chose Ishida Europe because of the company's ability to provide the design and installation of the new line. "We needed a partner with a reassuring knowledge of our processes," confirms Benoît Guéroult, director-general of Allaire. "We have also benefited from the close working partnership between Ishida and Multivac and the synergies of expertise that have resulted."
Equally important, says Allaire's director of production Catherine Prêtre, the new line plays an important part in delivering Allaire's policy of total traceability. "Every year, we have to get qualitative accreditations: this procedure encourages us to collaborate with partners we can trust such as Ishida, who use only materials that are compatible with strict food hygiene," she explains. "Reducing areas where product can get trapped, racks of clean contact parts, automatic cleaning systems, corrosion-resistant materials: all these offer great peace of mind and make the work of our teams much easier."
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