The food industry is quite complex with several steps involved in harvesting the raw ingredients, processing them, and selling them in stores. Weighing scales are used in virtually every step from farm to table, serving a variety of purposes for the multiple applications in the food chain.
Starting from the beginning of the food cycle and all throughout the food processing until it is sold, is very important to track the weighing of the food. Customers and producers want to make sure they pay and get paid for the correct amount of food. Also, an efficient weighing process helps to reduce food waste, which is a massive problem for the food industry.
Minebea Intec is a leading supplier of weighing and inspection technologies to the food and beverage production industry. Armed with a deep understanding of the challenges food and drink manufacturers face, the company has developed a range of products and solutions that are perfectly tailored to meet their needs in relation to quality and food/drink safety, while also enhancing efficiency and protecting production equipment.
Minebea Intec’s extensive range of high-tech equipment for weighing, counting and batching raw materials and finished products, as well as for foreign body detection etc., is ideally suited to the food and beverage manufacturing industry, and can help ensure that such objectives are met – always.
Let’s see some types of weighing scales used in the various processes of food industry
Goods in - Checking of incoming materials
Step 1 in production quality control: Ensure that all the materials that will be used in the production process are exactly as ordered. If not, the integrity of the entire manufacturing process is at risk before it begins, and the quality of the end product is already jeopardised.
Minebea Intec has everything needed to check incoming goods for weight content and foreign bodies – efficiently, reliably and fully compliant with the food industry’s strict hygiene standards.
Products and solutions in the area of Goods in:
Track scale components and solutions
PR6221/6224 load cells are designed to withstand the severe conditions in truck and railway scales. The allowable mechanical overload of up to 200%, the hermetically sealed housing and premium lightning protection, ensure a long and trouble free life time. Matched-output-technology omits the requirement of time consuming corner adjustments.
Silo and process vessel weighing solutions
A complete range of load cells and corresponding mounting kits for weighing process vessels and silos. The applications covered range from low accuracy inventory control up to high accuracy batching. Further applications include the weighing of vessels in areas requiring Ex certified equipment or hygienic design and the weighing of outdoor silos in earthquake prone regions.
Foreign body detection for bulk material
For all goods introduced into the production process straight from the field, Dymond Bulk efficiently detects and eliminates all kinds of foreign bodies, including metal, plastic, stone, clumps of dirt and glass.
Bench and floor scales
An extensive portfolio of bench and floor scales. Whether you are looking for a scale for simple weighing operations or for applications such as piece counting, filling or checkweighing, you have come to the right place with the leading manufacturer and supplier of weighing and inspection technology. All scales are characterized by precise and fast measuring results, user-friendly operation and high-quality workmanship.
Automated equipment for the production process
Automation of processes in the food and beverage production industry is continually increasing. Weighing and batching operations are critically important in this industry, as central production processes or as quality control measures.
Minebea Intec’s fully automated weighing and batching solutions are designed to be seamlessly integrated into modern production processes, with the speed required to avoid slowing down the whole operation. They are also designed to meet the highest hygiene standards – for example, by being easily cleanable. And, of course, they offer the precision and reliability required to ensure the quality of the product and the robustness and cost-effectiveness of the manufacturing process.
Products and solutions in the area of automated production:
Batching Solutions
ProRecipe XT® is a recipe management and formulation system that helps you reduce waste, minimize errors and ensure consistent product quality. Due to its intuitive user interface, the software has optimal operator acceptance and requires minimal training. The system offers full traceability and can be validated in line with FDA requirements.
Process Vessel Weighing (standard/digital solutions)
A complete range of load cells and corresponding mounting kits for weighing process vessels and silos. The applications covered range from low accuracy inventory control up to high accuracy batching. Further applications include the weighing of vessels in areas requiring Ex certified equipment or hygienic design and the weighing of outdoor silos in earthquake prone regions.
Process Vessel Weighing (hygienic solutions)
The design of the hygienic load cells is based on the strict hygienic guidelines for the production areas of the food and pharmaceutical industry. Their unique design features easy and secure inspection and cleaning and thus reduces any contamination risk. The materials used provide solid corrosion protection, even when cleaned frequently with aggressive agents.
Manually operated equipment for the production process
Despite the increasing automation of food and beverage production processes, a certain amount of manual measuring and weighing of materials is often required – for example, in conducting spot checks of previously measured or mixed ingredients.
In common with automated measuring and weighing equipment, manually operated equipment must be reliable, precise, fast and hygienic, but it should also offer one further key characteristic: ease of use.
Minebea Intec’s manual weighing and measuring solutions have been developed with the varying needs and strengths of individual workers, and the reality of ever-changing workforces, at their heart – making it possible to have just as much confidence in manual processes as in automated ones.
Products and Solutions in the area of manual production:
Portioning & Checkweighing
A range of weighing equipment that has been developed to provide efficient, reliable support wherever quantities of materials require to be measured or verified for any reason.
Formulation & Manual Recipe Weighing solutions
That offer high efficiency, user-friednliness and full traceability thanks to their automated recording data.
Weighing and checking during the packing stage
Packaging of the final product is arguably more important, and also more demanding, in the food and beverage production industry than in any other. Consumers must be convinced, in large part by the packaging, that the product meets their expectations in relation to factors such as quality, freshness and safety.
This is also often the last point at which contamination can enter the product. And, of course, the amount of product placed in individual packages must be reliably measured, and amounts must often be checked separately for quality control purposes. Minebea Intec’s numerous weighing, detection and inspection solutions have been optimised to meet the needs of food and beverage producers in their packaging operations, enabling them to have full confidence that the product leaving the factory will satisfy customer expectations.
Products and Solutions in the area of packaging:
Industrial Metal Detectors
Three types of industrial metal detectors; the Vistus in-line for the protection of consumers, the Secus in-line for the protection of production equipment and production staff and the Vistus Freefall for the inspection of product that is transported with the use of gravity through a pipe. All Minebea Intec metal detection equipment features German Quality combined with almost 70 years of experience in designing, building and servicing metal detectors.
Checkweighers
Used for checking product weight, completeness and other applications. Minebea Intec offers a wide variety of individually configurable checkweighers - from the inexpensive entry model to the premium high-end checkweigher. Customized solutions can also be offered for individual requirements. The checkweigher product portfolio offers a wide range of checkweighers from in-line checkweighers and end-of-line checkweighers to combinations of checkweigher and metal detector.
X-ray Inspection
A complete portfolio of X-ray systems for inspecting packaged products. Typical applications include cartons, boxes, pouches, bags, trays and sachets that can contain a wide variety of dry or liquid food products. The models Dylight, Dymond and Dyxim-FB are specifically designed for these applications.
Filling Solutions
Control units and software for filling solutions, whether automatic or manual that are highly accurate and easily adjustable to suit widely varying requirements in terms of quantity, speed and material.
Statistical Process Control
The statistical process control software SPC@Enterprise helps you secure product quality, food safety and productivity. The proven software offers configurable interfaces for recording data from a wide range of equipment. It transforms this data into information via powerful and comprehensive reporting functions, making it possible to react instantly if and when required.
Final checking before delivery
Once food and beverage products have been packaged or bottled, they can be stored until required and then transferred to Goods Out for delivery to customers. Here, reliable control and documentation of the product transfer is important for commercial and risk-avoidance reasons. Completeness of orders must be confirmed, and over-delivery of product should also be avoided – checks which may be especially important where secondary packaging (e.g. in cartons for shipping) is additionally required.
Checkweighing of orders can be very useful in this regard, especially where multiple product types or package sizes are combined in a single delivery. In some cases, it is most efficient to weigh an entire delivery truck, before and after loading with collected goods, so appropriately sized, very robust truck scales may be called for. Minebea Intec’s weighing and counting solutions can meet the most demanding of such needs, efficiently and reliably.
Products and solutions in the area of Goods Out:
Floor scales
A complete portfolio of weighing platforms and floor scales which you can connect to either a weighing terminal or directly to a control system. The portfolio includes painted and stainless steel platforms with a weighing capacity from 3 kg to 3 tons, available with or without weights & measures approval.
High-Capacity Checkweighing
A complete range of high capacity checkweighers for a wide range of applications including end-of-line completeness checks and weighing of large bags and containers.
