Metal detector, checkweighers helps food mfg keep tabs on quality

“At the HACO Group, we place a lot of value on our successfully implemented quality and environmental management systems,” explains Max Weiler, who is responsible for systems planning at HACO AG, a convenience food manufacturer in Gümlingen, Switzerland. “As a quality-focused business that understands its responsibilities, we have been certified according to ISO, BRC/IFS, halal, organic and kosher standards as well as specific national standards for many years. In addition, we often surpass these standards to meet the requirements of our business partners at home and abroad.”

Before HACO AG soups, sauces and other products reach the retailer or end consumer, they undergo extensive quality control inspection. Integrated metal detectors from Mettler Toledo Safeline check the ingredients for metal contamination that could have entered the product during processing. Capable of throughput of up to 6000 kg per hour, these metal detectors uses a high frequency technology that is very sensitivity to many types of metal, including nonmagnetic stainless steels, and a wide range of contaminants, including wires, swarf and processing blade tips.

Twenty-one checkweighers from Mettler Toledo Garvens monitor the weight of the HACO products that vary between 10 g and 1.5 kg in their final packaging. One of these products is an instant soup that Haco manufactures and packages in folding boxes for discount retailer Migros. A Garvens S2 checkweigher monitors the weight of each package’s contents, identifies overweight or underweight products and separates them out using lift gate conveyors.

In addition to the filling system for instant soups, sauces are weighed too. An S2 double-lane checkweigher with two weighing lines ensures that the weight of the four-way sealed pouches do not exceed 100 g, within an accuracy of 0.5 g. Like the single-track system, the double-track version also separates the overweight and underweight products reliably using sorting flap belts.