A 24-head multihead weigher from Ishida Europe is providing excellent speed, accuracy and flexibility for Magda, the French specialist in frozen wild mushrooms, to help deliver an...
A 24-head multihead weigher from Ishida Europe is providing excellent speed, accuracy and flexibility for Magda, the French specialist in frozen wild mushrooms, to help deliver an increase in production of 30 percent. The Ishida 24 head, 4-Mix, waterproof model provides an enormous number of weight combinations, offering the industry-leading accuracy associated with Ishida multihead weighers at impressive speeds. This effect is further multiplied by including a set of 24 'booster' hoppers that can save known weights of product unused in one weighment, making them available for the next. Equally important, the new weigher can be rapidly configured to weigh a single mushroom variety or mixtures of up to four separate products. In any mixing situation, it can be set up to weigh the most expensive product with particular accuracy. For a four-mix product, Magda is currently filling packs at up to 65 per minute. The weigher has three-liter hoppers in embossed stainless steel, a surface which discourages sticking or build-up of added ingredients such as herbs, garlic or shallots. It is located over a vertical bagging machine and operates in a packing hall at sub-zero temperatures, with the product being fed from Magda's 23,000m2 cold store (capacity 2,000 tons) at -24�C. Given the wider range of flavors available in wild mushrooms, and the expertise involved in selecting and handling them, each whole or part mushroom reaching the company's packing operation has a value which is not negligible.