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Ishida Weigher Provides Solution For ’Impossible’ Product

13/12/2004

An Ishida CCW-NZ-106B-S/15-WP Fresh Food Weigher (FFW) has proved the ideal solution for the weighing and packing of a marinated shellfish and vegetable mix for leading Belgian fish processor Gabriel, delivering excellent accuracy, faster throughput and ensuring perfect product consistency.

The shellfish and vegetable mix, comprising five different products, is one of Gabriel’s best selling lines but the very different characteristics of the five ingredients – plus a low target weight of just 170g for one of the pack sizes - meant there was a real danger of the products separating during an automatic handling and weighing process, leading to inconsistent product quality.

The solution offered by Ishida’s recently launched Fresh Food Weigher is to combine the proven accuracy of the multihead weighing principle with a linear design that allows manual feeding of the product onto the belt feeders of the weigher.

Instead of product being distributed to the weigh hoppers via vibratory feeders, an operator directs the mix along a set of linear belt feeders. The operator should ensure that all six belt feeders receive a fair share of product.

The Fresh Food Weigher is specifically designed to handle sticky fresh products such as marinated fish and vegetables, and also meat, poultry or fresh pasta. It features specially developed stainless steel or plastic hoppers with anti-stick scraper gates to ensure a smooth, reliable and consistent product flow through the weigher. A waterproof construction allows easy cleaning of all contact surfaces.

Using Ishida’s proven multihead weighing technology, the computer selects the combination of hoppers that most closely matches the target weight. A set of booster hoppers under the weigh hoppers holds product not initially selected by the computer. This frees up the weigh hoppers to accept more product and thus generate additional weight combinations, which further increases speed and accuracy.

The Fresh Food Weigher is positioned above a Multivac thermoforming machine and the seafood and vegetable mix is packed into trays in 200g, 500g and 1 kg sizes, presented three at a time for the smaller packs and in twos for the 1kg tray. A special ‘multiple point discharge’ distribution system under the weigher transfers product safely into the trays.

The Ishida Fresh Food Weigher operates at eight Multivac cycles per minute (with two or three trays per cycle) with accuracy to within 1% of target weight. This compares with Gabriel’s previous operation of five to six Multivac cycles per minute and an average product giveaway of 5g per pack.

In addition, the Ishida weigher only requires one operator, whereas before Gabriel required two operators to fill the product into the trays.

“We are delighted with the Ishida Fresh Food Weigher,” comments Norbert Lejoly of Gabriel. “It offers everything we have come to know about and expect from Ishida in terms of accuracy and reliability of operation and has provided the perfect solution for the efficient weighing of a product that we had previously considered impossible to handle automatically.

“As a result we have achieved excellent pack consistency and presentation, and a more cost effective packing operation.”

The installation at Gabriel was carried out by Ishida’s agent in Belgium, BRN Packaging Engineering, who also supplied a lift to elevate the one ton bin of product mix in readiness for weighing, weigher stand and distribution system along with a central control unit.