Claus from Food Infotech spoke to Abhijit Vaidya, Senior Sales Engineer, Technofour Electronics Pvt. Ltd., who shared a little on the product checking systems such as X-Ray Systems, Metal Detectors and Checkweighing solutions offered by their company along with its applications in the F&B Industry, including sharing more details about the recent solution introduced by them for the Food Processors.
Edited Excerpts Below:
Please begin by telling us about your company and the solutions that you’ve been offering for the F&B Industry.
Technofour Electronics is a Pune based company that was started by four IITians in 1972. We had celebrated our 50th anniversary last year. We are a manufacturer and exporter of metal detection systems and checkweigher systems that find their applications in the food processing as well as pharmaceutical industry. Currently, we are supplying our solutions in over 32 countries. Some of these solutions also find their use in chemical as well as automotive industry. Similar to the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry is placing greater emphasis towards prevention of contamination in food products.
Can you share a little about your checkweighers and its applications and benefits for the F&B Industry?
We have primarily been supplying checkweighers to the machinery manufacturers, particularly to the OEMs in the pharmaceutical as well as Food and Beverage Industry, including the end users. Checkweighers play a crucial role when it comes to the weighing of carton boxes and packets. Wherever usage of packets is involved, there arises a necessity to weigh the same. For instance, when you take a kurkure packet, it may be made available at a specific weight of 250 grams. In this case, weighing becomes important for the product. If a product exceeds the 250-gram limit, the manufacturer may provide excess material to the customer, resulting in potential losses. Utilizing checkweighers allows manufacturers to safeguard their businesses against such financial setbacks.
Please let us know about any of your recently launched solutions for the F&B Industry.
We have recently introduced new X-ray Inspection systems that are designed to detect contaminants in metallic food pouches as well as pharmaceutical pouches. These systems are highly effective, unlike the traditional Metal Detectors that may lack sensitivity for metallic pouch testing. Additionally, our X-ray machine can detect not only metals, but also other components such as stones, glass, ceramic, etc. Furthermore, it is capable of identifying missing products inside metallic pouches. X-ray technology has now become the optimized detection system for both food and pharmaceutical items.
We have also developed a highly accurate Stick Pack Checkweigher specifically designed for sachet items such as coffee, sugar, oral drink packs, etc. Due to the minimal weight of sachets, accurate weighing can be challenging. However, with the assistance of the Stickpack Checkweigher, we can achieve precision with an accuracy of +/-0.05 g. This solution is available in multi-tracks, ranging from 1 track to 10 tracks, with moderate speeds.
Please tell us about any improvements that you’ve planned to work on in your recently introduced solutions?
We have been consistently carrying out improvements in many of our solutions over the past few years. Currently, we are engaged in research and development for the launch of a new tablet counting machine designed specifically for the confectionery industry, particularly for the purpose of counting candies and chocolates. We plan to introduce this product in the next few months.
A bit about some of the challenges faced in your business.
In the current market, there are numerous local suppliers, especially for Metal Detectors, who are offering their products to their valued customers. On the other hand, it is also important to note that not all Metal Detectors available are genuine. The key aspect to be noted in this case is that Metal Detectors primarily detect the Challenge test piece to validate their functionality. Unfortunately, some local Metal Detector manufacturers provide opaque Test pieces, concealing the metal inside. They exploit this by adding more metal and in some cases, they may include only Fe metal in SS test pieces. In contrast, our company ensures transparency by supplying Challenge pieces where the metal is clearly visible and the inside metal ball is in a spherical shape to maintain uniformity from all sides.
Further, we go the extra mile by providing a Certificate number on the Test piece itself. This ensures accountability in the event of occurrence of any malfunctioning in manufacturing. On the one hand, local manufacturers may supply duplicate certificates that may suffice for audits, but on the other hand it could compromise the safety of contamination detection for consumers.
Finally, please tell us about your future plans.
As a solution-oriented company, we continuously strive to provide the best solutions to our customers. We are committed to introducing new innovations in the coming years and are working to develop new products/solutions that can help in enhancing product inspection accuracy in a number of ways.
