Natural Foods – Powder Coating Sticky Food Products

Dried fruit is inherently sticky and when such items as dates need to be chopped to be sold as ingredients the finished product needs to be covered with rice powder to stop the pieces sticking together.

A system was delivered recently that fed powder into a conveyor prior to the chopped fruit being deposited onto it. Excess powder was supplied and only that required adhered to the fruit. The unused powder was reclaimed and fed back to a reservoir to be used again.

The conveyors were made in ridigised stainless steel to reduce the likelihood of the product sticking and they also included fines removal and grading facilities to ensure correctly sized pieces were sent for final packaging.

Salad and Baby Leaf Handling – Decontamination

Fresh salad and similar when delivered to the factory direct from the growing fields may contain a large variety of contaminants. These can be twigs, snails, frogs, beetles, larvae, flies etc. If the product is fed over screens of different sizes many of the contaminants can be removed at specific points or loosened by the agitation of a vibratory conveyor.

This process helps in the washing cycles that take place in the low care area. The “High Throw” vibratory conveyors used for this application operates at a natural frequency lower that normal and allows amplitudes of up to 15mm.

High Throw conveyors can remove unwanted contaminants from fresh salad produce.

Frozen Food – Packaging Distribution

A considerable amount of frozen foods are packed in vertical form fill and seal bags. These can range from high capacity single systems to multiple packing stations.

Using a combination of “Flostore”, “Side Discharge” and “Gated” vibratory conveyors, systems have been supplied to provide highly efficient packaging solutions ensuring there is minimum time that the food products are exposed to ambient temperatures and consequently get packed and returned to the freezers as quickly as possible.

Minimum exposure of frozen foods to ambient temperatures

Topping with Fresh Herbs – Machinery Integration

Small vibratory conveyors with very fast controllable response were installed within a tub filling machine to mechanise the addition of ingredients. A controlled supply and scattered appearance were required for both product appearance and cost control.

The conveyors were nested together with a common filling point and their operation was signalled from the filling machine which worked intermittently. Due to the very light weight of the damp products rigidised stainless steel was used for product contact. The installation was totally stainless steel and sealed to IP65.

Fresh Meal Ingredients – Flexible Feeding Systems

Bulk hopper vibratory conveyors have been supplied for salad bowl and similar packing lines. Due to the differing ingredients ranging from tunafish through sweetcorn to salad leaf all conveyors had to be able to handle any product so that the mix in the bowl could be varied.

The hoppers or bulk stores were built into the “High Throw” conveyors so enabling the product to be kept agitated to avoid settling and adhesion. Peripheral discharge discharges were used to centralise the food onto the weighing machines to provide increased accuracy and consistency. All machines were manufactured in rigidised stainless steel and were fully washable.

Bulk hopper system utilising peripheral discharge conveyor.

Feeding system in-situ.

Grated Cheese Feeding – Dairy Industry

The growth in ready made pizzas and convenience foods has led to the need for better feeding systems handling larger volumes of shredded cheese.

The small lightweight mains frequency feeders that have served the industry until recently are being replaced by natural frequency vibratory conveyors that can cope with the significantly higher outputs and bagging speeds. These feeders can centralise the food onto the multihead weigher to improve accuracy and speed.

More often the conveyors are hung from ceiling supports to avoid steelwork and legs thereby reducing the cleaning requirements. All installations are IP65 and fully stainless steel unlike the predecessors.

Grated cheese outputting from a vibratory conveyor.