HUNGARIAN bakery Csipet Land has installed an Ishida weighing, packing and quality control line to achieve an annual production increase of 4-5 million packs of salted sticks.
Csipet Land manufactures pretzels and salted sticks, both as private label for supermarkets and under its own brand. In 2014, the company was bought by entrepreneur László Konkoly, who began a process of modernisation that now sees the firm produce more than 1,800 tonnes of baked snacks every year.
“Partly, this is about broadening our product portfolio, as we have introduced low-salt and organic varieties and are planning a gluten-free range,” he said. “But it is also about investment in new machinery to improve efficiency and allow us to meet consumer demand.”
One area in which Csipet Land could make a difference was in the delivery of 45g packs of salted sticks. The firm sells 14 million packs per year of this snack format. The key challenge was to achieve a high-speed packaging line, without compromising product quality.
“Salted sticks are thin and fragile and will break if not handled with care,” László Konkoly added. “Therefore, any investment in automation required delicate handling as well as speed.”
Konkoly spoke to food machinery specialist Master Quality, Ishida’s agent in Hungary. Master Quality proposed an integrated line comprising a multiheaded weigher, a vertical form, fill and seal (VFFS) bagmaker and a checkweigher/metal detector combi unit, all manufactured by Ishida.
The line is capable of weighing, bagging and check weighing 80 packs per minute – described as a ‘significant increase’ on what was previously achieved at the factory. Master Quality provided the conveyors, feeders and multiheaded weigher support gantry to complete the line.
Using belt and vibratory feeders, the salted sticks are delivered to the top of the multiheaded weigher. The challenge for Ishida was that the fragile nature of the product makes them particularly difficult to handle with an automated weighing system, especially when high speeds are required.
To address this, Ishida recommended its CCW-RV-216W-1S-20-SS-STK1, a specialist solution for weighing fragile stick products at high speeds and with reportedly no loss of accuracy or product integrity.
The stick weigher is designed with multiple features for gentle handling and precise product alignment. A low-profile inlet chute delivers the salted sticks to the top of the weigher. The convex dispersion table, utilising Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technology, is said to ensure maximum product control.
Narrow radial feeder troughs with waterfall ends align the sticks and transfer them to the hoppers. Hopper inserts help maintain the alignment of the sticks, keeping them upright and ready for a clean transfer. The selected weigh hoppers that come closest to the target weight then transfer the salt sticks into a discharge chute whose geometry maintains product alignment.
To reach the packaging machine, each portion of salted sticks passes through a triple iris timing hopper arrangement that aligns and settles the product and finally removes any misaligned sticks before discharge into the bagmaker.
The Ishida Inspira-NS25 bagmaker features intermittent jaw motion technology. Automated film centring, auto-splice film management, automated air-fill technology and other automatic adjustments aim to help ensure consistency in production and minimise human error.
The Inspira transfers the packed salted sticks to an Ishida DACS-GN-SE-012-24-SS-M-S checkweigher with integrated CEIA metal detector, which confirms each pack is within the required weight tolerances whilst checking for metal contamination. The checkweigher boasts Ishida loadcell technology to deliver weighing accuracy and consistency while Anti-Floor-Vibration (AFV) technology is intended to maintain high accuracy in environments susceptible to floor vibration.
Inspected salted stick packs are then manually packed into boxes for distribution. The full packing line has been customised to suit Csipet Land’s requirements, including the provision of HMI touchscreens in Hungarian language.Â
