Easiweigh has helped a high volume ready meals manufacturer to produce ready meals with less labour while improving presentation and reducing giveaway.
The manufacturer's ready meal trays comprise three basic compartments filled with a meat product or mashed potatoes; a single or mixed vegetable product; and a sauce or gravy. To fill all three compartments of the trays at a speed of 50 to 54 trays/min required six operators to manually deposit the product from plastic tote bins using 'loss in weight scales' and plastic scoops.
The manual filling of the larger and smaller compartments was met by installing liquid filling machines, which still left the problem of filling the medium compartment with vegetables. The solution from Easiweigh was a Quartet linear weighing machine fitted with four individual weigh heads to enable the customer to fill four trays at a time. This further reduced the number of operators required by two per shift while maintaining top production speeds.
By using Easiweigh's Pulse control unit to set the product weight parameters and tolerances, the ready meals manufacturer is now producing consistently accurate weights, resulting in reduced product giveaway.
Contact: GSH Holdings,Tel: 01733 202088