Technology from the meat industry could be set to make the transition to the produce sector, according to a leading equipment supplier.
Lingwood Food Services, who supply a range of equipment from harvesting to packaging, said it was looking at the meat sector for new solutions to fresh produce problems.
Ian Hope, sales director, said: “We’re borrowing concepts from the meat industry for waste removal systems.”
A Finnish company had approached Lingwood, said Hope, to investigate the possibility of translating the equipment into fresh produce.
The equipment could be adapted to remove waste such as peelings or outer leaves from the line, he added.
Lingwood itself provides a large range of machinery solutions to the fresh produce industry, specialising in products ranging from salads to potatoes, carrots and onions, as well as creating custom built equipment to meet specific company requirements.
The company was set up nine years ago, primarily focused on the prepared salad sector. “At the time the salad industry was beginning to move away from simply doing whole-head and more into prepared offerings and we concentrated on that area, building and supplying processing lines for salad products.”
Since then the company has widened its remit considerably, and now supplies a wide range of machinery which cover everything from harvesting and washing to slicing and dicing.
“We offer standard bits of kit from companies like Kronen, Feltracon, Finis and Nilma among others,” said Hope. “But we can create individual pieces of machinery to suit any organisation’s needs.”
The company represents 11 of the major European machinery manufacturers and has developed a unique demonstration area at its operations in East Anglia to allow customers to see the equipment in action.
Hope said: “The broad range of equipment we are able to supply allows flexibility to provide the most effective and efficient solutions for our clients.
Lingwood is also branching out into form, fill and seal bagging machines as well, with a new range from Dutch manufacturer GKS Packaging now available. “This development will help revolutionise the use of this technology in small to medium sized companies,” said Hope.
“The major advantage of the GKS range is that the machines are fundamentally smaller than other machines and they are completely self supportive.” All of the machines are capable of producing pillow, gusset or block-bottom bags in a range of films, he added.
The company is also developing vertigo elevators, said Hope: “The vertigo has been designed to replace conventional elevator belts which take up a lot of valuable factory floor space.
“In addition these types of elevator belts are difficult to clean, have difficult controls and wasteful transfer points. The vertigo takes product up to a height of 6,000 millimetres yet only occupies a small amount of floor space.”
A multicorer is also now on offer which will automatically remove the core and cut into segments most types of wholehead salad and cabbage as well as peppers and other products, he said.
“Operating at speeds of up to 4,500 pieces per hour, the process removes the core with the minimum of waste and damage to the product, thus improving yield without compromising product life.”
Managing director David Sherfield commented: “These are exciting times at Lingwood. Growth is being achieved as we maintain our philosophy of commitment to innovation in order to find efficient working methods and machines that will benefit our customer.”
READY, SET, GO...
Ishida Europe have introduced a fully automated solution for packing fresh produce into trays to maximise production efficiency while providing comprehensive quality control and reducing waste and labour costs.
The company now offers its Retail Ready Line which covers the entire fresh product weighing and packing process, including tray de-nesting, filling, tray sealing, metal detection, automatic label inspection and automatic packing into cases or Euro crates.
The line features Ishida’s state-of-the-art equipment, including its fresh food weigher, checkweigher, tray sealer, weigh-price-labeller and pack-and-place packer.
To maximise efficiencies and reduce waste, the trays are checkweighed prior to being sealed and metal detection is carried out before the trays are labelled. Integrated reject systems remove substandard packs or incomplete packs and cases without having to stop the line.
Paul Griffin, Ishida Europe’s marketing director, said: “Retailers and consumers are placing even greater demands on fresh produce processors and this in turn has created new challenges for the packaging industry.
“Larger volumes, faster throughput, increased flexibility, shorter lead times, maximum efficiency and high quality standards are all critical areas where packaging equipment manufacturers have had to respond.
“We believe our new Retail Ready Line provides a total solution that addresses all these issues. Importantly it provides a fully integrated line made up of individual pieces.”
20 YEAR HISTORY
Gainsborough Industrial Controls (GIC) has strengthened its position in the UK with its VFFS and end-of-line packaging machinery systems.
The latest addition to the machinery range is a high speed end-of-line robot MU and tray filler, which has been designed as a direct result from customer demands for new, flexible end-of-line automated packaging. The machine can handle packs ranging from 2.5 to 7.5kg.
“It has been designed to interface directly with any VFFS bag maker and the unit is compact and modular in construction,” said company spokesman Andrew Beal.
“As with the VFFS machinery series, all main machine movements utilise full maintenance free servo drives; providing absolute control, flexibility and reliability with low energy consumption.”
Meanwhile, GIC is celebrating 20 years of business this year. The first GIC designed VFFS machine was built in the mid 1980’s, but it has been in the last three-years, with big changes in the fresh produce industry, that the company has taken off, resulting in GIC installing over 70 lines of equipment.
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