Faccenda reduces chicken giveaway

Chicken processor Faccenda Foods has installed a flexible and space-efficient system for the accurate weighing and packing of chicken legs and drumsticks.

A second Ishida installation at Faccenda’s £35M poultry portioning factory at Telford weighs chicken fillets into trays, which then pass through an Ishida vision system and seal tester before being automatically picked and placed into crates via an Ishida IPS system. The factory is capable of processing up to 1.5M whole birds a week.

Both systems use Ishida’s screwfeeder multihead weighing technology, which features a circular multihead weigher layout but incorporates rotating corkscrews to replace the traditionally used radial feeders. The screws provide a fully automatic product feed to the hoppers.

The weighers are combined with Ishida’s Rotobatchers, with accurately weighed portions despatched to a series of packing stations on a batching table, where an operator places the product into a tray prior to the tray being sealed.

A key benefit of the Screwfeeder and Rotobatcher combination is that the Rotobatcher sits directly beneath the weigher. This maximises the use of space and has enabled Faccenda to create a highly efficient layout for its legs and drumstick operation.

The new Ishida systems have replaced a belt grading and packing system to deliver a significant improvement in giveaway, which has been reduced by around 30%.

Contact: Ishida Europe