Fresh fruit packaging made easy with Ishida weighers

With the aim of meeting increasing demands, Ishida weighing technology has played a significant role in enabling French fresh produce specialist, Voie Verte to expand and develop its range of fresh cut fruits and fruit salads

Fresh, sticky and bruise-sensitive products are generally delicate, which makes them hard to handle. To address this issue, Ishida Fresh Food Weighers (FFW) were specifically designed to provide a solution to the efficient and accurate weighing of these products. So far, three of these weighers have been installed to maximise production capacity in Voie Verte's new facility which includes a large and dedicated area for fresh-cut products. Growing demand coupled with exceptional performance has urged the company to invest in two additional six-head weighers. 

The presence of a distribution system at the top of the weigher allows one or two operators to evenly distribute products through belt feeders to the weigh hoppers, which also allows operators to have a final check on product quality before it is weighed into portions. The FFW’s ergonomic layout makes it easy to spread out products on the feeder table and the belt feeders facilitate a precise and consistent product feed to the hoppers. Scraper hopper gates, ribbed surfaces and scrapers on the collection belt conveyors minimise product sticking. These features help to maximise the speed, accuracy and efficiency of the weighing process.

In the case of Voie Verte, the weighers have helped deliver greater efficiencies, ensuring precise and accurate weighing of each portion of fruit with minimal giveaway, while maintaining the quality of the cut fruit. This has allowed the company to assign fewer operators to the packaging operation for these products. 

The intuitive remote-control unit on each machine allows for quick recipe changes, which makes the weighers suitable for short production cycles. Hoppers can also be easily removed for cleaning, enabling recipes changes to be carried out in around 10 minutes. In addition, the 12-head model is ideal for fruit mixtures as it can weigh two different fruits simultaneously. At present, the weighers are operating at a speed of around 20 trays per minute. The reason for choosing lower speeds is to maintain smoothness and consistency, while also allowing other equipment on the line to keep up with the FFW's maximum speed.

For more information, visit: www.voieverte.fr