High Performance Metal Detectors Offer More Haste Less Food Waste
The most recent research shared by food waste prevention experts WRAP reveals that over half of the food waste generated by the UK manufacturing and retail sector is avoidable. Good news is, the figures appear to be falling.
Phil Brown, European Managing Director, Fortress Technology explains how faster high performance metal detector systems play a part in reducing the volume of false rejects and subsequently avoidable food waste.
Total food waste – avoidable and unavoidable – across the UK supply chain in 2015 was an estimated 1.7 million tonnes, with surplus and waste in manufacturing representing the equivalent of 4.2% of UK production (around 58 million tonnes). Retailers and manufacturers are already doing a lot to ensure suitable food surplus is being made available for redistribution, and under the UK Courtauld 2025 Commitment, three signatories reported a 74% increase in the amounts being redistributed between 2012 and 2014 reports WRAP.
Equipment choices, robust quality control processes and staff training are all critical factors when it comes to reducing factory food waste states Phil. However, putting all these waste reducing mechanisms in place doesn’t mean compromising on line speed.
“If anything, production lines today need to be faster, accommodate quicker product changeovers, recalibrate at the touch of a button and provide suppliers with assurance that contaminants haven’t slipped through the net,” says Phil.
The newest metal detection technology can help to keep waste to a minimum while maintaining high product integrity and food safety levels.
Cutting false rejects
False rejections occur when perfectly good product is identified as containing a contaminant. The product has to be discarded, regardless of whether metal has actually entered the food chain or not. This is more common on lines inspecting wet products, such as dairy, ready meals, dips, meat, poultry and fish, bakery and even salted and fortified mineral snacks.
Primarily this is because food metal detectors have until recently struggled to reliably distinguish between the signal generated by a genuine metal contaminant and the signal caused by product effect. Moreover, stainless steel has been especially difficult to detect in wet products since any signal can be effectively disguised by the product effect.
Adding up the amount of product wasted due to false rejects can be challenging. Yet, industry estimates put the cost per line of false rejects at up to £14,000, depending on the scale of the problem. In addition to physical waste, repeated line stoppages to clear reject bins and troubleshoot machine issues can undermine the cost effectiveness on production lines.
Designed to overcome this issue, the Interceptor metal detector from Fortress applies both high and low frequency ranges in order to isolate the product signal, and more readily identifies any contaminant signature beyond that. Trials with stainless steel in wet products have shown that Interceptor can pinpoint contaminants half the size of those detectable by former generations of equipment.
Increasing inspection output
Increasing the volume of inspection lanes for specific product ranges can also attain reduced food waste and enhance inspection productivity.
This could be accomplished by channelling multiple lanes through a single, large metal detection aperture. The clear drawback here is that the larger aperture size sacrifices valuable levels of sensitivity. In addition, any reject system will remove an entire line of product across all of the lanes being checked, so creating unnecessary waste.
Of course, there is the option of positioning a separate metal detector over each lane. This will mean product is only ever rejected from one lane, but the approach has major impacts in terms of cost and space efficiency. In today’s food factories, many of them working around legacy equipment and within severe spatial limitations, compact design is often a prime consideration.
Because the multi-aperture multi-lane metal detector designed by Fortress has a dedicated aperture for each lane, the system is more sensitive to smaller metal particles and copes better with orientation and product effect. Best of all, each aperture operates like a standalone metal detector, inspecting and rejecting products on each line. So, in a twin lane configuration, false reject waste can instantly be halved.
A single control panel manages all lanes, which streamlines operator access and enables users to select and view production data by individual lane as well as analyse comparative lane data side-by-side. Because each lane can be programmed to run asynchronously from each other, if one lane goes down or requires maintenance, the remaining continue to run as normal. Which means production never has to grind to a halt.
“Our recent developments in metal detection can have a direct bearing on the amount of food waste manufacturers generate. It serves to demonstrate that food safety on the one hand and concerns about cost, speed and wastage naturally overlap. What’s more it proves that on fast moving production lines haste doesn’t always equate to more waste,” add Phil.
1 www.wrap.org.uk/content/how-grocery-supply-chain-can-save-£millions-tackling-food-waste
Fortress Technology
- 01295 256266
- sales-UK@fortresstechnology.com
- http://www.fortresstechnology.com
- Phantom Bldg, Beaumont Road, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX16 1RH GB
About us
Fortress Technology began its humble beginnings in 1996 believing that through superior product design and engineering the production of higher quality equipment with better sensitivities could be achieved. The phenomenal market response to the Fortress Phantom line of metal detectors has validated that belief and the philosophy on which it is based… simple operation, outstanding reliability, and exceptional performance. Over the years, Fortress has blossomed into a global enterprise with main offices in Canada, the UK, and Brazil serving North America, Europe, and Latin America. Their valued representatives provide cost effective and customised inspection solutions to customers’ worldwide.
Where we supply to
Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America, North America
Industries we supply to
Automation, Chemicals, Consultants, Components Electronics, Energy and Power, Food and Beverage, Glass Ceramics Cement, Metals and Minerals, OEM, Paper and Pulp, Pharmaceutical Cosmetics Toiletries, Plastics and Rubber, Recycling, Textiles, Tobacco, Water and Wastewater
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Episode 1: Food Safety Programs
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Episode 2: 'Inspecting' Metal Detector and X-Ray Technology
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Stealth Metal Detector - Acceptable Setup
