Food safety in weighing, inspection systems

Food safety, quality and authenticity define development work and innovations at Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.’s food and beverage segment. One of the strong categories in Thermo Fisher’s industrial and applied science markets, the company’s products for the food and beverage industry comprise testing equipment and solutions for analysis, food microbiology, food weighing and inspection, and food authenticity and labelling testing, all of which are designed to enable manufacturers deliver products that meet strict global requirements.

Thermo Fisher, a multinational biotechnology product development company, leverages its expertise in innovative technologies and services and strong following for its premier brands – Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services – to remain a world leader in serving science.

The company’s food weighing and inspection solutions include checkweighers, metal detectors, X-ray detection and inspection systems, and even product assurance services and solutions.

Checkweighers deliver accuracy, efficiency

Checkweighing solutions from Thermo Fisher can handle wet and dry applications and different package types from rigid variants such as cans and glass to soft varieties such as plastic, paper and foil.

The latest products boast nonstop checking to guarantee efficient and accurate weighing, counting and rejection. The equipment can handle raw to frozen products, and large and heavy packages without having to stop or recalibrate the conveyor, ensuring maximum productivity to meet consumer demands. 

The company’s Versa Flex Checkweighers, which comprise the Versa Flex and Versa Flex GP, are suitable for dry applications. They can be used for baked goods, snack foods, prepared foods, condiments, pastas, rice, beans, and baking ingredients such as flour and sugar. They are also suitable for personal care products such as pharmaceuticals.

The fixed-height Versa Flex and height-adjustable Versa Flex GP can handle light to heavy packages, and can easily integrate into setups with existing Versa checkweighers. Both checkweighers are customizable and adopt the proprietary Weigh Engine using the Thermo Scientific AutoCalc signal processing system for easy setup. They have an intuitive menu operation, easy-to-read color touchscreens and configurable security access levels. Their modular electronic design facilitates repair, making maintenance easy for food manufacturers. 

The Versa Flex machines work with any package type, including cartons, bags, cups, bottles, jars, pouches and boxes. It has a speed range of up to 312ft/min for models with as much as 6.61lb and up to 295ft/min for models exceeding 6.61lb capacity.

They use a 304-grade stainless steel frame with bead blast finish and hard anodized aluminum or SST for the rollers. The belts are of urethane FDA blue UU20 or FDA blue E2/1~E3/1 type depending on conveyor dimensions and applications.

Sharp contaminant detection with X-ray systems

Thermo Scientific^TM X-ray Systems provide a cost-effective way to find contaminants in packaged food products. 

Designed for use with a wide variety of food applications, the NextGuard X-Ray Detection Systems can find metallic and non-metallic foreign objects while eliminating the “wet” products effect commonly experienced with metal detectors. They can also check for missing pieces or components, under and over-fills, and other quality problems in packaged products.

The NextGuardC330, NextGuardC500 and NextGuardPRO adopt a standard system process that is six times faster than the earlier models to enable high-speed contaminant detection and inspection, and better user responsiveness. They can be configured to enable dual rejection and separation of contaminated products from other quality errors. With additional algorithms, the systems can detect less-dense contaminants such as glass or rocks in textured products such as nuts.

The systems also support optional product verification software to enable inspection using a wider range of size, position and count parameters, and optional mass estimation software to estimate weight and detect under/over-filled products. For light and homogenous products such as powder or cheese, the optional 0.4mm-pixel detector can help increase resolution for better metal detection capability.

NextGuard X-Ray Detection Systems

Metal detectors for demanding environments

Thermo Scientific can tailor metal detection systems to suit food packaging requirements and challenges. 

The APEX HD Metal Detectors are equipped to handle harsh washdown, mechanical vibration and sanitation with caustic chemicals, making it ideal for demanding food processing and packaging environments. 

Available in two models – the APEX 500 and APEX 300 – the metal detectors feature a breakthrough signal processing approach, Thermo Scientific Intellitrack XR, that can detect metals with smaller diameters and at the same time compensate or remove the “wet” product effect.

The detectors feature greater sensitivity and stability for fewer false rejects and lower maintenance costs. Their rugged heads can withstand washdown environments while the unique case design and epoxy fill can weather thermal shock. The 316 alloy stainless steel body features high corrosion resistance.

Both the APEX 500 and APEX 300 come with the Thermo Scientific conveyor, drop through and pipeline systems. The products come with a standard 3-year parts and labour warranty.

Thermo Fisher’s Combination Checkweigher and Metal Detector combines X-ray and metal detection technologies to offer manufacturers accurate weight control and contaminant detection at less cost. This system uses the Thermo Scientific VersaWeigh Checkweigher and Thermo Scientific APEX Metal Detector in a space-saving design.

The Combination Checkweigher and Metal Detector can separate metal-contaminated products from potentially reusable off-weight products. Its metal detector reject operation runs independent of the checkweigher output signals.

All in all, these machines are designed to help manufacturers ensure and improve the safety and quality of products by eliminating errors. They will also help cut scrap, boost throughput and improve overall profitability.