Ishida Europe Ltd. (UK) - Weighing and packaging equipment specialist Ishida Europe will launch a number of new products at this year’s Interpack, underlining the company’s global market leadership in weighing and quality control equipment as well as in complete line solutions for snacks and fresh foods.

Highlights include several new multihead weighers for sectors such as confectionery, snacks, granular products and fruit and vegetables; a new X-ray system capable of detecting small bones in meat and poultry; new weigher/bagmaker combinations for snacks; and the latest advances in complete packing lines for fresh meat and poultry.

The Ishida stand will be divided into four sections to showcase Ishida’s different sectors of expertise.

In Weighing Solutions, the company will unveil a 32-head mix weigher from its RV range, capable of mixing up to eight different products for discharge into the same bag or for discharging a single product into a high speed packaging machine, and therefore ideal for confectionery, nuts, frozen food or high-speed multi-compartment applications. A second new development will be a circular version of its pioneering Cutgate weigher which offers even higher speeds and unrivalled accuracy for the weighing and packing of granular products.

A number of the weighers will also be fitted with the tablet control software from Ishida to offer operators and line managers more flexibility in weigher operation.

New equipment for Quality Control includes an X-ray system for bone detection in fillets. The IX-G2-4027-H offers the highest levels of detection in order to pinpoint even the smallest bones in meat and poultry. Ishida will also show an enhanced version of its FLEX-Grader for meat and poultry batching and grading, which uses Ishida weighing technology to grade at high speed according to specified weights, minimum weight or number per pack.

In its Snacks Solutions section, Ishida will demonstrate a new entry-level weigher/bagmaker combination, the First Range, which offers an economic, medium speed solution for snacks packing, delivering a fast payback on a reduced investment. Also on show will be an 18-head model from the advanced Ishida RV range, ideal in combination with its Atlas twin rotary snacks bagmakers to deliver speeds of up to 140 bags per minute per side for potato chips. Other equipment being demonstrated on this line will be an Ishida seal tester, DACS-G checkweigher and IX-GA X-ray system for effective quality control, and Ishida’s advanced Strip Pack Applicator, which provides a retail ready product display solution.

Another new system will be for salt stick packing, allowing producers of stick shaped snack products to maximise handling efficiency and packing speeds, while minimising product breakage.

In addition, Ishida will demonstrate its ultrasonic bagmaker. Ultrasonic technology uses ultrasound to agitate the molecules within the film causing them to vibrate and this creates the heat required to seal the pack. The ultrasonic technique achieves a stronger and more consistent seal while requiring less power. Significantly, film usage is substantially less thanks to the sealing depth of the bags being reduced on the end seal from typically 10mm to just 3mm, and on the back seal from typically 13mm to just 6mm.

Two complete packing line solutions will be showcased in the Fresh Solutions section of the stand. The first will feature a 16-head RV weigher combined with a split dual lane tray sealer, X-ray system and case packer, which can handle two separate lines of product simultaneously. The second will combine Ishida’s advanced Roto-Batcher with a QX-775 tray sealer, weigh price labeller and integrated Ceia metal detector, and seal tester and vision system.