At QUPAQ, they believe they make the best, fastest, and most reliable denesting tools. And at Interpack 2023 in Düsseldorf, they are ready to prove it.
On Friday 5 May 15.00, the market-leading provider of tray denesting will engage in the ultimate stress test of the tool's reliability: 1,000 trays denested in just one minute, using one single tray denester.
"We claim this to be the world's fastest denesting operation ever. Therefore, we announce this as an unofficial world record. We believe it is important to continue to push innovation and highlight the importance of improving productivity, rentability, and automation for sustainable food production in the future", says Jesper Johansen, Marketing Manager at QUPAQ.
Gravity is the biggest challenge
The record attempt will be carried out with a basic denesting tool, modified to improve reliability and strength at high speed. QUPAQ specialists will load the machine and quickly remove the trays when they drop from the denesting tool.
Usually, a production line runs a maximum of 150 trays per minute with a single tray denester. Therefore, this attempt of denesting 1,000 trays in 60 seconds will push QUPAQ to the limit. Team leader Michael Hjortlund is planning the bold attempt. In particular, he highlights one major challenge: At high speed, a tray denesting tool combats the laws of gravity:
"The tricky part is when the trays exit the denesting tool. If trays drop faster than available space, they will renest themselves midair. So, we need to remove the trays very fast to keep this from happening. At the same time, we will have to ensure rapid and accurate shifts in the loading of the trays. So, it will be a hectic attempt, which requires much preparation", says Michael Hjortlund.
Why attempt an unofficial world record?
Several food manufacturing companies still use manual labor for tray denesting. It is a challenging job and not very cost-efficient. Just consider that if this record attempt were carried out manually, it would require around 20 people to succeed.
By attempting to break the 1,000-trays-a-minute barrier with an automated tray denesting tool, QUPAQ wants to raise awareness of optimizations within food manufacturing and emphasize the innovation level needed to increase performance in the industry. In fact, automation of the denesting process is an easy optimization that benefits everyone in the value chain.