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Channel Fish Company Gives Cats Something to Meow About
Channel Fish Company processes fish destined for major cat food canneries. Producing to the highest quality standards, Channel Fish relies on a PowerPhasePRO metal detector from Mettler-Toledo Safeline.“We’re looking to get every piece of metal out that we can. We have zero tolerance,” noted Jeff Bedrick, IT Manager at Channel Fish Company. “We are protecting our equipment, protecting our brand and, most importantly, protecting our customers’ brands. We won’t ship product that hasn’t gone through the metal detector. If the metal detector goes down, we’ll stop the line.”
Before installing the new Safeline metal detector in May 2008, the metal detector in use at Channel Fish was problematic. Although it was only six years old, they experienced significant downtime, the maintenance supervisor averaged five hours a week to service the system and detection sensitivity didn’t meet expectations. Channel Fish had to rely on the magnets at the end of the line to assure they were shipping metal-free product.
“We judge how well the metal detector is working by what’s on the magnets. We used to find much more on the magnets – now we barely find anything,” said Bedrick. “We’re pulling out smaller pieces and more than twice as much with the new metal detector than we used to. Pulling it out with the metal detector upstream of the grinder, instead of with the magnets downstream of the grinder, helps protect our equipment.”To maximize detection sensitivity, the PowerPhasePRO features high frequency coil technology and advanced head geometry that zero in on all types of metal contamination, from common ferrous and non-ferrous tramp metal to the most difficult to detect stainless steel fragments. To virtually eliminate false rejects, a “Faraday Screen,” located between the detector coil system and the product being inspected, filters out signals that can interfere.
“We considered five different metal detector suppliers. The most important thing was customer service. And we wanted a guaranteed specification for detection sensitivity,” explained Bedrick. “Metter-Toledo Safeline was willing to ship us a metal detector free of change so we could demo it and get real world experience. We thought this was fantastic because it allowed us to test the system given all our in-plant issues. Our sales rep, Mike McCarthy from Flo-Dynamics, even came out to be sure we got up and running smoothly.”
“This is the worst environment you can imagine for a metal detector. Our product is wet and very salty. The room is humid and cold during operation and humid and hot during the sanitation shift. We think moisture was one of the biggest problems we had with our old metal detector. Our new metal detector is rated to NEMA 4X, which is a huge plus for us. Knowing the system can withstand our high pressure, hot water washdown is really important.”
“We measure the success of the metal detector based on detection sensitivity and reliability,” concluded Bedrick. “We’re confident that we’re shipping metal-free product. And our maintenance guy hasn’t had to touch the Safeline metal detector since we installed it.”
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