Key Technology, a Walla Walla, Washington-headquartered unit of Duravant LLC, has introduced Compass optical sorters for individually quick frozen (IQF) products including vegetables, fruit, seafood, poultry and meat. The equipment identifies and removes foreign material (FM) and product defects to protect food safety and final product quality.
“On IQF production lines, processors often handle dozens of different products and change over several times a day. Optical sorters for these applications require a great degree of flexibility and must maintain high accuracy despite significant product changes,” said Duravant Group President for Food Sorting and Handling Solutions Jack Lee. “The intuitive user interface and straightforward recipe-driven programming offered by Compass means even entry-level workers with no technical background can easily operate this system to achieve peak performance.”
Positioned at the end of the processing line, immediately prior to packaging, the advanced sorter is promoted as “ideal for whole products, slices, dices and crumbles as well as product mixes.” Utilizing in-air inspection, the chute-fed it “sees” all sides of the product with no blind spots. Compass detects and rejects plastic, glass, metal stones and other FM including extraneous vegetable matter (EVM) like leaves and toxic weeds. Processor-specified product defects are also removed from the line with virtually no false rejects. When inspecting product mixes, the equipment can be programmed to ensure the ingredients are correctly proportioned.
The sorter’s ergonomic user interface resembles smart devices for effortless navigation. Engineered from the ground up to maximize sanitation while simplifying cleaning and maintenance requirements, it features an open, washdown-compatible design with easy access for personnel.
Recipe-driven programming ensures consistent sort performance on every product run, which is especially valuable in high-changeover applications. Operators can create new recipes for new products or adjust existing recipes to accommodate product changes without assistance from an application engineer or Key service technician.
Compass features a modular design and is available in multiple sizes to satisfy a wide range of customer applications and capacity requirements. Object-based recognition facilitates sophisticated shape sorting algorithms, while intelligent ejection maximizes sort accuracy and minimizes false rejects.
