The installation of an Ishida AirScan in-line leak detector at the Polish factory of Eisberg, one of Europe’s leading producers of fresh convenience salads, vegetables and fruit, is ensuring complete seal integrity for the company’s wide range of ready-to-eat fruit and vegetables in Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP).
- An Ishida AirScan Systems inspects a large range of MAP packs of ready-to-eat salad, fruit and vegetables checking the packs for escaping CO2.
- The Ishida Airscan checks every single pack and reliably detects and reject any bags with leaks as small as 0.5mm
- The AirScan inspects around 35 packs per minute with product changeovers typically taking well under a minute.
As a result of using the Ishida AirScan, Eisberg has been able to enhance both the quality and safety of its products, ensuring that they remain fresh and can be used throughout their entire shelf life. Equally important, by automating what had previously been a manual and time-consuming quality check, the company has been able to overcome the current labour shortage in its sector.
Founded in Switzerland in 1972, Eisberg today has seven production facilities throughout Europe and is the number one supplier of convenience fresh produce in Switzerland and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The company’s Poland factory opened in 1992 and together with its factory in Romania, which was established in 1995, helped to contribute to the growing popularity and consumption of salads in the CEE region.
Quality has always been of paramount importance to Eisberg. The company therefore needed a more reliable method of checking for seal integrity in both its pillow pack and tray formats, as its previous off-line tub and water method was laborious and, as the company’s Technology Manager Damian Bańkowski describes it, “somewhat makeshift.”
“The arrival of the Ishida AirScan has elevated our inspection process to a higher level of automation,” he said. “And with the difficulty in recruiting the right personnel, we now have a system that can operate independently of human intervention, ensuring fully automated inspection of our products for complete seal integrity.”
Designed for use with a wide variety of foods, the Ishida AirScan uses advanced laser technology to provide fast and reliable identification of CO2 leaks from holes as small as 0.5mm. The Airscan works by lightly pressurising each pack while testing the air around it for traces of excess carbon dioxide.
At Eisberg, the Ishida AirScan checks the packs for CO2 leaks due to poor seal integrity, physical damage, product-in-seal incidences as well as compromised seals caused by incorrect parameter settings on the packaging machine.
The AirScan has been fully integrated into the packing line, inspecting around 35 packs per minute. It is in operation eight hours each day, and Eisberg says that it is working reliably with no issues reported and with product changeovers in typically less than a minute.
“The Ishida system is intuitive and can be operated by anyone following brief training,” said Damian Bańkowski.
The AirScan was supplied by Ishida’s Polish agent Fenix Systems. As part of the installation, Fenix provided an enclosure around the machine to help protect it from any air movements generated by upstream equipment and maintain its accuracy. Fenix also conducted comprehensive training for both the technical department and line operators.
“Thanks to the AirScan, we can now carry out comprehensive in-line seal integrity testing, which gives both ourselves and our customers full reassurance as to the quality and safety of our products,” concluded Damian Bańkowski.
“Our decision to invest in Ishida was based on the recommendations and experiences of our colleagues elsewhere in the group, who were already working with Ishida, and it has certainly proved to be the right move. We plan to install more Ishida equipment in the future, including additional AirScan systems.”