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FT-Nov17-eMag

FOREIGN MATTER DETECTION BLUEBERRY QUANDRY Quebec Wild Blueberries is dedicated to making a good thing better. Starting with wild blueberries, the Canadian company has invested in the most advanced technology to create individually quick frozen (IQF) berries beyond compare… But foreign material like twigs, bits of wood, stones, moss and product defects have always dogged frozen berry fruit production. Last year, the progressive industry-leader installed a digital sorter from Key Technology in its production facility, and the results have been dramatic. “When we replaced an existing laser sorter with a VERYX camera/laser sorter last year, we improved our product quality and reduced false rejects,” operations director Pascal Hudon says. “We also doubled our throughput with the same number of workers, which decreased our production costs. Compared to our previous sorter, VERYX has increased our defect removal rate by about 3000%. It’s simply incredible.” Designed to meet the needs of each application from basic to complex, the sorter has tailor-made sensors, lighting, ejection, product handling and software to address the product’s characteristics and the 18 NOVEMBER 2017 processor’s objectives. With nine metric tons of frozen berries an hour, Quebec needed a high-volume chute-fed sorter with front and rear-mounted laser sensors and colour cameras. “Front- and rear-mounted sensors achieve all-sided surface inspection to fully view each object in the product stream with no blind spots,” Hudon says. The sorter removes even the most difficult-to-detect foreign material and defects without false rejects to help the company exceed industry standards while maximising yields. “We’ve improved our defect removal rate at the same time we’ve virtually eliminated false rejects,” Hudon says. “We used to re-sort our reject stream to recover good product. Now, there’s no comparison – only rejects go to the reject stream so we can send it straight to the trash.” As one of the largest blueberry processors in the world, Quebec Wild Blueberries understands that its success depends on its ability to consistently deliver the highest quality berries to its private label customers around the world. “We use the sorter to collect data and produce reports, so we’ve got a lot more information than we’ve had in the past,” Hudon says. “That data is very useful in that it allows us to have better control over our production. The people at Key Technology are also high performing. Their service is superior to other suppliers. Our clients’ quality requirements evolve as their customers get more and more demanding. We stay ahead by leveraging the most advanced technology.”


FT-Nov17-eMag
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