Scanvaegt has launched a new system aimed at reducing give-away in poultry processing. The DreamBatcher is said to substantially reduce wastage by enhancing the efficiency of the packaging processing.
Currently the retail industry pays food processing companies on the basis of the weight printed on the pack - not the actual weight of the product in the pack, making the reduction of give-away an all-important factor in the processing procedure.
Packing net weight trays manually often leads to a give-away of more than 10 per cent, and the figure is up to 6 per cent or more for automated packing methods. Processing companies can therefore improve their bottom line significantly by reducing this overweight to an absolute minimum.
That is why Scanvaegt has developed and patent applied a concept offering give-away which is claimed to be 2 per cent or less. The concept is already successfully operating in several poultry plants, proving its ability to produce net weight trays with low give-away. For certain popular products and pack sizes the give-away is less than 1 per cent.
The DreamBatcher concept
The DreamBatcher concept was developed for weighing and batching at high speeds to extreme accuracies, utilising Scanvaegt's UPT (Ultra Precision Technology) offering a capacity of up to 360 pieces/minute/line.
The concept comprises a twin automatic or semiautomatic infeed system feeding poultry parts to a twin high precision weighing unit, passing the weighed parts to the specially designed compact separator and packing unit.
Having integrated work-stations to suit the capacity of the line, operators are allowed to remain at the workstations, all items for the packing operation, inclusive of the individual operator tray dispenser unit being within easy reach. The machine and tray dispenser set up is easily adjustable from segment trays to family tray pack sizes.
After products have been styled at the workstations, each tray is easily placed on the appropriate take-away conveyor that leads to a ScanCheck checweigher prior to wrapping.
The technology behind the concept
The improved weighing results are achieved via a newly developed weighing machine, named ScanBatcher III, utilising Scanvaegt's experience developing high speed/high accuracy weighing machines for use in wet food industries.
This concept secures weighing accuracies down to 0.5 gram and at the same time protects the hermetically sealed, stainless steel, high precision loadcell.
The low give-away is achieved by means of Scanvaegt's CamelBack technology and the associated SuperBatching software package. One of the many unique features of this, is its ability to provide the ultimate utilisation of an ever changing flock weight.
This is one of the many reasons why The DreamBatcher concept is able to secure that give-away, when tray packing chicken parts, is as small as 2 per cent or less.
Scanvaegt invented the multi-channel grader in 1978 to allow food processing companies to grade and portion fresh food products to fixed weights. The company has installed numerous net weight packing systems throughout the world and is the world leader within this field.