Cabinplant A/S, a pioneer in the food industry, presents award-winning multi-head weighing and packing solutions for ready-to-eat meals with highly sticky ingredients at Interpack 2023. Sticky ingredients are a major challenge for the automatic production of ready-to-meat meals.
Highlights at Interpack 2023
- New award-winning multi-head weigher: The fully automatic MHW Extreme facilitates weighing and packing of highly sticky products, ideal for fixed weight labelling without costly giveaway (first-time at Interpack).
- The MHW with screw feeding facilitates multiple weighing of ingredients like sticky poultry meat of uneven weight. The system can be set to work with one, two or multiple weighing targets of products in the packages.
- Multibatcher – innovative food weighing technology reduces giveaway and labour costs when it comes to weighing/batching sizable portions (box packing)
Fully automatic MHW SF Extreme: Weighing and packing of highly sticky products
The Multihead Weigher SF Extreme solves one of the industry’s major challenges in being able to automate the production of ready-to-eat meals containing sticky ingredients. It features an innovative scraper/weighing pan design and a revised processing solution for easy filling and packing of the food into trays.
The SF Extreme automates the dosing and packing of fixed-weight portioning of products like pasta salads with sticky ingredients such as diced vegetables, poultry meat, onion rings, rice, pasta, tuna fish, mayonnaise, yoghurt, etc. The solution has remarkably high accuracy, thus minimizing giveaway.
The changeover of the SF Extreme is down to 5-10 minutes, allowing the production of small batches with frequent changes in recipes and portion sizes. Further, automatic dosing means that ingredients are placed precisely when packaged. In this way, the product is presented better and more uniformly to the consumer.
Earlier this year, the solution won the prestigious innovation award, Trophées de l’Innovation, at the French CFIA food technology exhibition and is now presented for the first time at Interpack.
Boosting productivity, reducing labour costs
The MHW SF Extreme reduces manpower by 60-70 per cent due to the high degree of automation, and thanks to the compact design it fits into most existing production lines.
– The MHW SF Extreme brings a significant productivity boost to automated plants for fixed-weight products containing highly sticky product mixes. It is a breakthrough for fully automated production of ready-to-eat meals with sticky ingredients, eliminating a lot of manual processes, states Michael Falck Schmidt, Global Sales Director at Cabinplant, and he continues:
– The solution addresses the booming convenience food market and the retail industry’s demand for fixed-priced and portioned products. It reduces giveaways and optimises the consumption of basic ingredients that are becoming more and more expensive.
Multiple target weighing adds flexibility
The Cabinplant MHW with the patented screw feeding functionality facilitates single or multiple weighing and targets problems with ingredients of uneven weight. Cabinplant’s multiple target system can be set to work with one, two or multiple weighing targets of products in the finished packages.
For example, the solution simultaneously can weigh 500 grams and 1,5 kg packages. This also helps reduce giveaway dramatically because products that do not fit in the size of small packages are instead used for big portions, offering greater flexibility than before.
Cabinplant Multibatcher: Box packing in the fast lane
The Multibatcher is an automatic high-speed solution for weighing and packing of sizable portions up to 35 kg. It is the first batcher based on the combinatorial weighing principle and an alternative to conventional batching with high tolerances and manual processes. The Multibatcher has the potential to reduce both giveaway and costs through precision and speed.
The raw materials are weighed into partial portions in pans which are combined into batches with giveaway down to 0.25-0.7%. This is a remarkably prominent level of accuracy compared to solutions like batching based on the top-up principle.
– The Multibatcher provides significant savings. The giveaway can be reduced with up to 900 kg of meat daily for a processing line running two shifts and based on 100 grams or less giveaway per portion, says Michael Falck Schmidt, Global Sales Director at Cabinplant.
The Multibatcher processes up to 15 batches of 0.5-35 kg per minute. The solution is tailor-made and can be fitted into existing packing lines or used as a stand-alone unit. The solution is suitable for large high-value products, including meat, meat by-products, and poultry products where the reduction of giveaway will have a noticeable impact on earnings.
Innovations in Food (& Beverage) Processing & Packaging is a quarterly magazine distributed globally both in Print and Digital formats. www.innovationsfood.com. Twitter: @Innovfoodtech. Instagram: @innovationsinfoodtechnology. Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/terry-prior52
