Victory's Kitchen of Canada has launched an excellent method to detect metals in its new range of frozen foods, while its new automatic packaging equipment has also accelerated production.
Victory's Kitchen, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, produces its own branded foods that are available in chain restaurants and retailers. The company's steamed soup, sauce, and spicy sauce are made entirely by yourself. In fact, Victory's Kitchen also grows and processes vegetables by itself, and all purchased materials are quarantined until the company's strict internal quality assurance tests are passed.
“We have strict control over quality control,†said Mr. Alan Collig, founder and president of Victory's Kitchen. Therefore, when Mr. Collig decided to launch the company's own brand of frozen main course, he was committed to creating a production line with modern technology that can easily adapt to the growing demand for production.
“This line is very different from the packaging line we used to make retort bags,†he said. Pipeline metal detectors that used to be used daily at Victory's Kitchen are no longer suitable for testing the metal in sealed plastic trays used in new main course products. “For the metal inspection of other production lines of the company, the first product is to pass through a conduit, and then the conduit passes through the metal detector. For metal detection in plastic pallets, you must treat rice, sauce, vegetables and protein carefully. The composition, and thus this is a more complicated task, requiring a more sophisticated inspection system," explains Mr. Collig.
Fresh contrast frozen
Victory's Kitchen purchased a Fortress IP69K-rated Phantom BSH stainless steel metal detector from Fortress Technology () equipped with a custom-designed Vector tilt transport system from Fortress and a flap gate rejection system.
Mr. Collig wants a system that is flexible enough to detect flexible bags and frozen main dishes. “For other inspection systems, the reject arm can push the product away from the conveyor, but it is difficult to push the liquid bag away from the conveyor,†he explained. By assembling the detector on a tilting conveyor and eliminating the need for a reject arm, Fortress offers the flexibility needed to handle pallets and bags. “If there is a defective product, the flap gate will open and the product will fall into the ramp.†Mr. Collig said, “This is a low-cost solution to the problem.†Other equipment features include full digital signal processing. And fully variable speed conveyor operation to synchronize with downstream automated cartoning lines.
Initially during the pilot phase, Mr. Collig placed a metal detector near the start of the line to expose any potential problems as early as possible. “At the time, we placed the detectors in the process of filling the trays and sealing the trays with transparent film,†he said. However, Fortress noted that placing the detector on the production line prior to the freezing process would limit the level of sensitivity available. To ensure better quality control, quality control personnel want to detect smaller sizes of contaminants. In addition, when fresh products pass through the current detectors and are then sent to the shelf system for freezing, the fresh sauce usually passes through the grid of rice in the multi-grid tray, causing the product to be rejected. This creates waste and requires more quality control personnel to inspect the finished product.
“Metal detectors work by measuring conductivity or magnetism,†says Mr. Steve Keeman, president of Fortress Technology. “Many products made by Victory's Kitchen contain salt or water in the ingredients, resulting in a conductivity of the product. High, this has become a source of interference."
To increase the sensitivity of the detector, Fortress recommended Victory's Kitchen to move the Phantom detector to the end of the line, which is installed after the product freezing process. According to Mr. Kidd, if the food is frozen first, the moisture will crystallize, which can completely eliminate the above conductivity problem.
“With the simple action of moving the detector to the end of the line, we have improved the sensitivity from detecting 4.5mm thick stainless steel to a level of 2mm thickness, which is a huge leap,†Mr. Collig said. Since the frozen sauce does not flow into the rice grid, passing the tray through the detector after freezing also reduces the appearance of waste."
Another benefit of the backward movement of the detector position is the reduction in calibration time. Since different main dishes have different conductive properties, the detector must be set for each fresh main dish, which results in a decrease in productivity and a risk of human error. However, if the product is frozen before entering the metal detector, the detector will "see" the difference between the various frozen products, so one setting is sufficient. The “One Pass Through Calibration†feature allows the detector to complete the setup for a new product in seconds.
Booster tray packaging
When the new main course product line was first put into production, the packing process was completely done manually. “The carton must be spread by hand and then glued to close the flap at one end,†Mr. Collig said. “When the tray is placed in the carton from the other open end, the carton is glued closed manually. This process requires Using a large number of operators for long hours of work. Eventually it became a production bottleneck and costly."
To automate the packing process, Victory's Kitchen purchased a HC-120 manual loading horizontal digital cartoner from Consolidated Technologies (). Although the device automatically opens, closes, and glues the carton, it still requires manual loading of the tray. “When we need more speed, we will automate the pallet filling process,†Mr. Collig said. Currently, the speed of this case packer is 70 cases per minute. Other features include an automatic feed conveyor and an additional workstation so that only two workers can slide the tray into the box.
Mr. Collig is very satisfied with the results. “We reduced the 10 workers we needed to the current 2, and the production capacity has increased exponentially.†He said, “Now we are preparing to achieve higher yields without increasing labor costs.â€
Finally, Victory's Kitchen upgraded its semi-automatic tray sealing line. Before the equipment is upgraded, a stack of pallets is manually removed and placed on the conveyor. When the tray is filled, it is placed in the feed box on the tray sealing machine by the operator. Several trays are sealed at a time, and the operator then removes the sealed tray from the feed box and sends it downstream of the line for freezing.
Victory's Kitchen purchased a Model PXM fully automated online multi-channel filling and sealing system from Nuspark Engineering Inc. (). The system automatically unpacks the stack and places the tray on the conveyor. The tray is sealed after it has been filled, eliminating the need for the operator to place the tray in the feed box. “We eliminated several stations and significantly increased production capacity,†Mr. Collig said.
Similarly, the Phantom BSH metal detector has also been declared successful. “The detector is easy to use, extremely user friendly and intuitive,†Mr. Collig said. “We have not seen the detector rejecting the wrong behavior. In order to accommodate everything from hard pallets to flexible bags. In the form of packaging, Fortress spent a lot of effort in designing the detector."