Plainville Farms Turns To Mettler-Toledo Safeline To Assure High Food Safety And Product Quality Standards
Growing and processing the finest natural, antibiotic-free turkeys, Plainville Farms satisfies an extremely quality-conscious customer base. To assure its high food safety and product quality standards are consistently achieved, they turned to Mettler-Toledo Safeline and selected the PowerPhasePLUS RB metal detector for its large aperture and unparalleled detection sensitivity inspecting large products. Originally designed for 50-lb bulk bags, the PowerPhasePLUS RB metal detector is ideal for many dry, wet, loose or packaged products, including Plainville Farms' whole turkeys and deli meats.
"We have never had a metal problem in this plant, but having a metal detector is a selling point with customers," noted Bella Stahl, Plant Manager at Plainville Farms' Liverpool, New York facility. "Because we rely on Mettler-Toledo Safeline, our customers know they can rely on us."
Both the products and the environment at Plainville Farms could challenge most metal detectors so they were careful to select the best system for their application. Smoked and salted products can create a "product effect" that causes false rejects and the shear size of large turkeys passing through a metal detector can cause an interruption in the magnetic field, known as the "bulk effect." Safeline overcame these challenges when designing the PowerPhasePLUS RB metal detector.
The use of high frequency coil technology and advanced head geometry, combined with new filtering techniques, allows the PowerPhasePLUS RB to achieve excellent detection sensitivity despite the large aperture. Customized for each application, the metal detector at Plainville Farms features an aperture that is 22 inches (558 mm) wide and 18 inches (457 mm) high. With dual frequencies and programmable product settings, the PowerPhasePLUS RB at Plainville Farms reliably inspects their wide range of products from large, 25-lb hollow turkeys to small, 2-lb whole-muscle deli meats, detecting all types of metal including non-magnetic stainless steel and fine wire.
"To maximize the quality and safety of our meats, we send packaged product through a post pasteurizer rather than using irradiation or infrared technology like most turkey processors. At first, we were a bit concerned that putting the metal detector immediately downstream of the post pasteurizer would cause problems with the metal detector. There's a lot of humidity, which typically isn't conducive to keeping electronics in good working order," explained Stahl. "But the Safeline metal detector we selected is made of stainless steel and is NEMA 4X rated. It works perfectly, even in our challenging environment."
Plainville Farms measures the success of its metal detector based on product quality and productivity as well as the operation's labor requirements.
"The Safeline system far exceeds our expectations," said Stahl. "We validate the metal detector every time we start up and we perform random tests throughout the day. The detection sensitivity is perfectly consistent. Our team members are more productive and we've got less downtime than we had with our old metal detector."
"Plus, Mettler-Toledo Safeline's service is amazing," Stahl concluded. "Our sales rep, Don Stewart from Flo-Dynamics, even stayed with us during installation and start-up to be sure everything went smoothly, which it did."
SOURCE: Mettler-Toledo Safeline