Equipment

Ishida Europe has introduced two "screw feed" multihead weighers for handling fresh, sticky products.

The new models are suitable for meat, poultry, fish and seafood, which cannot be moved by feeder vibration, or where manual product feeding is not economically viable.

Ishida said its screw feed design uses the familiar circular multihead weigher layout, but rotating corkscrews replace the radial feed troughs to provide controlled and fully automatic product feed to the pool and weigh hoppers.

The first model features three-litre, stepper motor driven anti-stick metal hoppers and is suitable for larger target weights and piece sizes, including on-the-bone products. It has a top speed of 80wpm.

The second version features 1.5 litre pneumatic-driven plastic scraper hoppers and operates at 60wpm.

Ishida Europe's marketing director Paul Griffin said: "The machines are ideal for the dedicated weighing of two or three products."

Both models use the processing software of the Ishida R-Series, which the firm said gives improved weighing speeds and accuracy of 20% compared with the best linear weighing systems.