Food & Material Handling INFORMATION

ASGCO® offers a full line-up of conveyor products for the Food & Material Handling Industry.

Overview

The food and beverage industry is all companies involved in processing raw food materials, packaging, and distributing them. This includes fresh, prepared foods as well as packaged foods, and alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.

Food production is the process of transforming raw ingredients into prepared food products. Food production includes industries that take raw food products and convert them into marketable food items. Home food production includes converting produce into forms for long-term storage.


Subsets of the Food & Material Handling Industry

Farming

The farming subset of the food and beverage industry encompasses those businesses involved in the production and collection of raw agricultural commodities such as corn, wheat, soybeans and rice. This portion of the food and beverage industry includes seed producers as well as agribusinesses.

Processing

This portion of the food and beverage industry is dedicated to processing raw material foods into forms that may be more easily distributed and sold to consumers. Processed foods come in many different forms but may be roughly divided into the following subsets:

Distribution

The companies engaged in the distribution subset of the food and beverage industry are responsible for putting finished or near-finished food products into the hands of hungry consumers. Most broadly, there are two channels through which corporations deliver processed foods to their customers. On one hand, grocers and supermarkets provide processed but unprepared food to customers that they may then prepare in their homes. On the other hand, the restaurant industry serves its customers with fully prepared foods.


Food Industry Certificationsanitary-logos-1

Baking Industry Sanitation Standards CommitteeBISSC is the Baking Industry Sanitation Standards Committee, which publishes voluntary standards for the design and construction of bakery equipment.They’re recognized as the definitive sanitation standards for equipment used in the baking industry.

EU Food Contact Regulation – Article 15 of the Framework Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food specifies the labelling requirements. It states that food contact materials shall be accompanied by the words “for food contact” or this symbol, unless when it is obvious that the article is for food contact.

FDA Approved, USDA Certified, EU 1935/2004 Compliant – Designed to meet the strict sanitary guideline established for food processing operations. FDA approved materials and certified by the United States Department of Agriculture for use with meat and poultry, as well as dairy, for facilities requiring USDA accepted equipment in their operations.


Performance Parameters for Food Processing

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When designing processes for the food industry the following performance parameters may be taken into account:

Hygiene – measured by number of micro-organisms per mL of finished product

Energy efficiency – measured by “ton of steam per ton of sugar produced”

Minimization of waste – measured by “percentage of peeling loss during the peeling of potatoes”

Labor used – measured by “number of working hours per ton of finished product”

Minimization of cleaning stops – measured by “number of hours between cleaning stops”

Solutions Case Studies

Excalibur Food Grade Belt Cleaning System Solves Carry-back Problem Midwest Bakery

Excalibur Food Grade Belt Cleaning System used in pastry dough waste conveyor application. Objective: To provide a solution to a carry-back problem with jelly and dough sticking to the conveyor belt. Details: Many food processing plants have problems keeping their conveyor…

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Excalibur Food Grade Belt Cleaning System used in pastry dough waste conveyor application.

Objective: To provide a solution to a carry-back problem with jelly and dough sticking to the conveyor belt.

Details: Many food processing plants have problems keeping their conveyor belts clean during manufacturing of the food products. A lot of these products have ingredients that contain sticky material that won’t release from the belt. This customer had a carry-back problem with a pastry product containing very sticky jelly and dough like material that wouldn’t release from the conveyor belt causing a major carry-back problem.

Challenge: The carry-back would not release from the conveyor belt and would actually keep layering up on to itself with each conveyor rotation. The carry-back would also build up on all the return rollers on the conveyor, causing the conveyor belt to mis-track. When material builds up on one side of the return roller it acts like a crown pulley that influences the conveyor belt. With the belt mis-tracking the edges of the belt get damaged. The customer would then have to replace this belt several times a year.

Before Belt Photo After Photo With Excalibur

Solution: After surveying the conveyor application it was recommended to install an ASGCO® Excalibur™ belt cleaning system. The Excalibur™ is made out of 300 Series Electro-polished stainless steel with a Stainless steel torsion spring tensioning system, and a unique UHMW blade that can be snapped-on/off for easy cleaning and change out. The Excalibur™ system can be mounted in several locations on the conveyor, in a primary position at the head pulley, also after the head pulley in an aggressive or passive secondary position.

Results: The customer is very happy with the performance of the Excalibur™ belt cleaning system, it has helped with the carry-back problem, and the maintenance crew loves the fact that they don’t need any tools to tension or change out the blade for cleaning.

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The Excalibur™ Is A Novel Belt Cleaning System


 

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