THE installation of four Ishida RVE multihead weighers at a French olive and spreads manufacturer has reportedly enabled the company to increase productivity by 10%, reduce average giveaway from 7g to 2g, and cut the volume of non-compliant finished packs by 70%.
Located in the heart of Provence, Tropico Apéro produces a range of products in both bulk and packaged format. Due to high customer demand, Ishida said the company was suffering from the unreliability of its previous equipment across its four production lines.
To ensure ‘consistently high’ output rates and eliminate machine breakdowns, Tropico Apéro invested in the 14-head three litre Ishida RVE multihead weighers. Thanks to the results achieved from the first installed machine, the company quickly decided to buy a further three weighers to standardise equipment across its packing lines, as part of a €1.5 million investment programme over five years.
“Everyone we spoke to in the agri-food industry raved about the quality of Ishida weighers,” said Ludovic Champion, Tropic Apéro’s director of operations. “The tests we conducted on the initial Ishida weighing solution were so conclusive that we purchased three more to standardise our machinery.
“We have now significantly increased the efficiency of our production lines and drastically reduced our spare parts budget while reducing product loss.”
Ishida added that the accuracy and consistency of the weighers have enabled Tropico Apéro to focus on minimising giveaway across the different types of packaging used for its products. The reduction in non-compliant packs is also said to have eased the workload for operators.
The CCW-RVE multihead weigher has been designed for the rapid weighing of free-flowing or semi-sticky dry, chilled, fresh and frozen products. It features a stainless-steel finish with an embossed surface and ‘enhanced’ design to prevent the ingress of water.
The embossing of all contact parts is designed to reduce the contact surface area to prevent product sticking and to maximise throughput.
At Tropico Apéro, the weighers are in operation during the off season for one eight-hour shift, five days per week, and for two or three shifts, around five to six days a week, in peak season. Each machine is handling 40 packs per minute, enabling the company to produce around 700,000 250g packs per week.
