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Ishida helps Valdigrano bring pasta into the mainstream of food manufacture

12/01/2000

Italy, where pasta was an important food long before Marco Polo is reputed to have brought this dish from China back to the old world, has a long tradition of Pastifici, or cottage-industry manufacturers.

Valdigrano di Flavio Pagani Srl is proud of this tradition, but determined to develop large scale pasta manufacture in line with the best of modern food manufacturing practices. It was natural that, with their need to weigh dry pasta fast and accurately without breaking, they should select Ishida as a packing-line solutions partner.

Pasta for Europe and North Africa, durum wheat from around the world Valdigrano is a major food manufacturer, producing 60 varieties of short pasta alone. Based in Brescia, Northern Italy, the company distributes its pasta throughout Italy, the rest of Europe and North Africa. Domestic brands include Valdigrano and Pasta di Flavio, and export brands Gigi Magic Chef and Primavera. Valbio is the brand of its organic, wholemeal pasta made with flour from certified, organic semolina millers. As well as these brands, Valdigrano produces pasta for other companies and makes own-brand products for retailers. Supplies of durum wheat for pasta making come from Italian mills and, on occasions, from as far afield as North America and Australia.

Handling pasta with care To handle their pasta, Valdigrano has four Ishida multihead weighers, the most recent acquisition being a CCW-RZ-214W-S/20-PB weighing machine. For statutory reasons, their production lines must have checkweighers, and again Valdigrano has consistently chosen Ishida checkweigher machines, the latest being two DACS-W-012-SB/PB.

With years of experience in designing automated weighing equipment to handle pasta, Ishida know how to ensure that breakage is largely avoided. A range of features have been built into the multihead weighing machines supplied to Valdigrano, including the intensive use of bancollan, a hygenic and resilient plastic material, to ensure a soft landing for the pasta. Bancallon is used as mats on dispersion tables, as inserts for hoppers, and as poles for discharge chutes.

Additional features for careful handling of pasta are timing hoppers under each discharge chute, which break the fall of the pasta. The timing hoppers also ensure that the weighment enters each pack as a discrete bolus, reducing the risk of seal-trapping.

Efficiency is the priority

As one would expect in the food industry, achieving efficiency whilst maintaining a high standard of hygiene is very important to Valdigrano. Its production line for short pasta, employing four Ishida multihead weighers, packs 1,500 kg/hour, mostly in 250g and 500g pillow bags. Ishida weighing machines have proved themselves fast and free from problems.

Valdigrano’s plant is virtually automatic. Such is its efficiency that the whole operation runs 24-hours a day with just 18 personnel working in three shifts.

Product changeover in under 15 minutes

With 60 varieties of pasta being packed, changeover from product to product occurs frequently, but must not unduly disrupt the production process. With the pre-programmed settings of the Ishida multihead weighers, changeover is a simple, push-button process.

Comfortably meeting payback targets

Valdigrano sets a target of five years for machinery to pay for itself. Its Ishida multihead weighers and checkweighers easily meet these payback targets, and often pay for themselves much sooner.

A reputation for handling pasta

Signor Giuseppe Manici was responsible for introducing Ishida to Valdigrano, which was previously using volumetric and linear weighers. He became familiar with Ishida weighers in a previous job with a pasta machinery manufacturer. ‘The issues that most concern Valdigrano when buying weighingmachinery for the packing line are quality, service and value,’ says Signor Manici. ‘We believe Ishida make the best products of the type, the Mercedes-Benz of weighers, in fact! The last one we bought was the third in three years. And like the previous weighing machines, it has proved fast and problem-free in service.’

Ishida multihead weighers and checkweighers have ensured that Valdigrano can pack its short pasta products quickly and accurately, whilst preserving product integrity. This helps Valdigrano to provide both traditional satisfaction for consumers and a sound business proposition for its commercial customers.