AN Ishida IX-GN-2444-S x-ray inspection system is helping to ensure Polish cheese specialist Mleczarnia ‘Turek’ Dairy’s products are leaving the factory free from potential contaminants.
Mleczarnia ‘Turek’ Dairy is a producer of branded mould cheeses, including camembert, brie and blue cheeses, in sizes from 100g to 1.6kg.
The process of injecting strains of mould into blue cheeses needs to be carefully monitored to avoid even the smallest risk of tiny metal contaminants. Because the cheeses are packed in aluminium foil, a metal detector is unsuitable for checking for metal foreign bodies. Instead, Turek opted for the Ishida x-ray solution.
“Product quality is of paramount importance to us,” said Ireneusz Przygonski, the company’s packhouse manager. “We chose the Ishida IX-GN-2444-S because of its ease of use and the guarantee that any sub-standard products will be identified and discarded before they reach the end-consumer.”
Key to the detection accuracy of the Ishida x-ray system is its patented Genetic Algorithm (GA) technology. This enables the machine to be optimised for greater sensitivity to specific foreign bodies to maximise the reliability of the detection process.
Due to space restrictions at the Turek factory, the IX-GN-2444-S is operating off-line as a standalone system. The machine inspects bulk cartons of the packed cheeses; if a contaminant is identified, the machine is stopped, and the faulty pack removed. The system is in operation for around eight to 10 hours, five days a week, inspecting approximately 40 cartons per minute.
The machine also provides a back-up in the event of a failure of the x-ray systems on the other, non-blue, cheese lines.
“Since its installation, the IX-GN-2444-S has worked faultlessly and we have had no problems with it,” Mr Przygonski added.
