FDBusiness.com

MULTIVAC has developed a hygienic and efficient solution for the automated infeeding, loading and packing of straight and uniform sausages, and this solution was presented for the first time at IFFA 2016. The MULTIVAC Centrifuge Feeder (MCF) can be integrated seamlessly into packaging lines and enables handling costs to be reduced by up to 60 percent when compared with manual loading.

The solution comprises five high-performance components: the sausages are transported via an inclined conveyor to the centrifuge plate that is constantly turning.  There they are orientated at the outside edge of the plate by the centrifugal force and are taken up individually from the centrifuge ring. Then a V conveyor transports them to a downstream compartment conveyor that carries each product, individually and precisely aligned in a separate compartment, to the handling module. There the gripper picks up the desired number of sausages and loads them into the pack cavity.

Up to 600 sausages per minute can be gently separated and loaded by the MULTIVAC Centrifuge Feeder. The output of the MCF can be adjusted as required via the rotation speed of 30 to 60 revolutions per minute. If even greater volumes are required, it is possible to use several of these modules on one packaging machine, so that virtually any capacity can be scaled up. This solution can be used very flexibly, and it is suitable for single-layer and multi-layer packs with any number and orientation of sausages.

MULTIVAC offers the Centrifuge Feeder in either a left or right rotating version, so that with a wide range of possible line layouts the optimum space utilisation can be achieved. All the components are produced in the MULTIVAC Hygienic Design™ and can therefore be cleaned simply and reliably. Thanks to the automated process, human contact with the delicate products is also minimised – an important contribution to hygiene in the packaging procedure.