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Confectioners target of metal contaminant tooling upgrade

Monday 6 September 2010

Increasing demand from retailers for rigorous quality control from suppliers was one of the drivers behind the enhancement of the sensitivity and early warning system of a throat metal detection system aimed at confectionery and snack food production.

Neil Giles, marketing manager at Mettler Toledo Safeline said the supplier’s new Super Throat (ST) series for vertical packaging applications was informed by the need of its leading confectionery and snack maker client base for high sensitivity inspection tooling to ensure the elimination of small metal contaminants such stainless steel shavings or wire fragments.

The ST series is based on Zero Metal Free Zone technology and allows the metal detector to be installed in the confined space between the outlet of a multi-head weigher and the inlet to the VFFS bag making operation.

Speaking to ConfectioneryNews.com, Giles said that the new ST series arose, in fact, out of a pilot project that was initiated a year ago with German producer Bahlsen.

“Despite all the recent developments in metal detection, sugary confectionery makers and crisp or snack producers are still recording the occasional small erroneous metal pieces in their sealed packs and sought a system that would improve current screening of free-fall products before the final bagging stage,” he said.

He explained that the development work undertaken for the Hanover based chocolate and biscuit maker involved the redesign of the coil system and detector head geometry in a throat detector unit along with changes to the software algorithm so it could discriminate between the signals from the metal contaminant and those generated by the product itself.

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