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Food For Thought – A Variety Of Ishida Solutions On Display

Anuga FoodTec Preview, Ishida Europe, Hall 7, Stand 7C070/D089

ishida logoAt Anuga FoodTec Ishida Europe will underline its expertise in food packing and quality control with a range of packing line solutions for a wide variety of products and applications including fresh foods, meat and poultry, frozen foods, confectionery, salads, snacks, ready meals and mixed products.

Equipment on show features an integrated fresh packing line and four multihead weighers, including the world’s smallest model, a screw feeder weigher, and the world’s first weigher to achieve the most stringent IP-69K hygiene rating.  Quality control technology is showcased by a checkweigher and three X-ray models, one of which is capable of detecting even the smallest bones in meat and poultry fillets, and another which can spot both metallic and non-metallic contaminants within products packed in PET bottles, tetra packs, carton brick packs and doypack style stand-up pouches.

The Ishida Fresh Packing Line for meat and poultry combines accurate weighing with subsequent product batching, tray sealing and seal testing.  The 14 head Ishida 3 litre Screw Feeder weigher incorporates unique rotating corkscrews to provide a powerful, controlled and fully automatic product feed to the pool and weigh hoppers.  Each accurately-weighed portion is then despatched to a packing station on a rotary batching table, where an operator transfers it to a tray, styles it and places the tray on an ‘out’ belt for sealing, labelling and quality control.  

Filled trays pass through Ishida’s market-leading QX-775-Flex tray sealer, which combines a compact design with high speeds for MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packaging) trays of typically 15 cycles per minute, along with maximum hygiene and high quality pack- and product presentation.  The Ishida seal tester then uses gentle pressure to identify even the smallest imperfection in a seal to maximise final product and pack quality and an integrated vision system identifies missing / incorrectly placed labels, checks the bar code, sell-by dates and printed and visual information.

Ishida’s advanced X-ray inspection systems are ideal for detecting foreign bodies, including aluminium, tin, glass, stones, hard rubber, plastic, bones and shells.
A unique self-learning Genetic Algorithm (GA) technology offers maximum sensitivity and reliability, detecting impurities down to 0.3mm in size with the ability also to spot missing items or damaged products.  

Alongside the proven IX-GA 4075, specialist models are available for specific applications.  The IX-G2 uses advanced dual energy technology to easily distinguish contaminants from the product, even in the most difficult applications.  It is particularly appropriate for foods where the density of the product and the potential contamination is similar, for example the bone and meat of a chicken which have almost the same density.

The system can also be used for overlapping products, where a possible contaminant may be obscured by product, such as in bags of frozen chicken nuggets or sausages.

The Ishida ‘’bottle’’ X-ray system, the IX-GA-B3034, provides stringent food safety monitoring for PET bottles, tetra packs, carton brick packs and pouches.  Uniquely the machine takes product off existing conveyors and returns it after inspection, meaning it can be easily integrated into current production layouts with minimal disruption.   A choice of reject systems is available and the IX-GA-B3034 can also be specified with fill level and cap detection to avoid under-filled and incorrectly sealed packs.    

In its multihead ranges, Ishida’s 14-head ‘Lilliput’ weigher is capable of handling ultra-low weight applications, such as tea, soup ingredients, spices and herbs, at high speeds and with unsurpassed accuracy. The Lilliput can handle target weights from 0.5 to 40g at typical speeds of 100 weighments per minute, while its ultra-compact dimensions (650 x 650mm x 720mm height ) will fit into any factory.

IP rating tests carried out on Ishida’s RV-WP (waterproof) multihead weigher models at a leading UK independent testing centre have proved that their design and assembly consistently comply with the highest industry standards.  These relate to dust and water ingress resistance, including the most stringent IP-69K test.  This compliance means the weighers are more water resistant than ever before and are perfectly suited to applications where equipment has to be thoroughly sanitized.

Another RV model on show, the CCW-RV-216 is a 16 head model which can handle mixed product applications or two separate products independently at speeds of up to 240 packs per minute.

The Ishida DACS-G-015 checkweigher features an Ishida designed, exceptionally fast and accurate digital loadcell that is able to operate with great reliability in the harshest of environments.  A unique feature of the loadcell is its ability to switch between two weighing capacities and graduations, giving it the flexibility to handle a much larger product range.  At the touch of a button, the DACS-G 015 can be switched between a maximum capacity of 600g (0.2g graduation) to 1.5kg (0.5g graduation).