Pictured above: Rapunzel's new Ishida RS-210 weighing cashew
nuts: the weigher's advanced combination calculation system
provides a new level of accuracy, reducing giveaway by 5%
German organic food company Rapunzel Naturkost has invested in
two Ishida RS multihead weighers for the weighing and packing of
four diverse products, including muesli, dried fruit and cashew
nuts, and a new range of gourmet, ready-to-eat dishes containing
rice, vegetables and spices.
Rapunzel, based in Legau, Germany, is a pioneer of the organic
food sector and has over 400 different products in its range. Due
to an expanding business and aging equipment the need to modernise
the packing lines became essential.
The solution from Ishida Europe's German operation has enabled
just two packing lines, each featuring an Ishida RS weigher, to
handle the four products.
10-head model fills large (1kg and 2kg) consumer bags of muesli
as well as the dried fruit and nuts in packs ranging from 50 to
500g, while a 16-head weigher accurately mix-weighs the new 250g
rice dishes and can rapidly switch to single-product mode to handle
smaller packs of muesli (from 375 to 750g).
While all products are filled into see-through bags which after
sealing are placed into an outer carton with a cut-out display, the
weighing applications are very different. For the pre-prepared
dishes, the proportions of rice, vegetables and spices have to be
both accurate and consistent. The target weight for the spice
element, for example, is only 10g. The 16-head Ishida provides the
state-of-the-art accuracy needed, as well as a speed of 40ppm
(packs per minute).
The smaller muesli products are mixed prior to packing and the
Ishida multihead again provides excellent accuracy, reducing
giveaway by 5% compared to Rapunzel's previous packaging line, and
a speed considerably greater than the downstream secondary
packaging steps can match.
The 10-head Ishida weigher uses large 3-litre hoppers to fill
high-quality, pre-formed, edge-reinforced bags with different types
of pre-mixed muesli to target weights of 1kg and 2kg, reaching
speeds of up to 15ppm. The dried fruit and cashew nuts are packed
into plastic bags of 50, 100, 200, 250 and 500g target weights, at
speeds of up to 50ppm, much lower than the potential speed of the
RS, which is again limited by downstream activities.
The accuracy of the RS-Series machines, which stems from
Ishida's latest combination calculation technology, has also
reduced giveaway by 5% for these two product ranges.
According to Hans Weiß, Rapunzel's Technical Manager,
weighing organic foods throws up some specific problems relating to
the nature of the products.
"They are organic, and as such often irregularly shaped, moist
or very sticky," he explains. "Ishida weighers can reliably cope
with such products in a cost-effective way.
"Now, we can pack our mueslis at a much higher speed, and we can
rely on an effective packing solution for our rice-based ready meal
as well," continues Mr Weiß. "In addition, we have spare
capacity at hand for packing our dried fruit."