Bagging snacks goes best in class

With state-of-the-art technology for weighing and bagging, Alimentos Bermudez S.A. is set to conquer the snack food markets of Central America, the Caribbean, and the U.S.

Alimentos Bermúdez S.A. is part of the well-known Bermúdez Group, owner of six food-production companies with operations in Costa Rica, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados. Since its founding in 1989, Alimentos Bermúdez has consolidated its presence in the packaged snacks market to become the leading company in snacks and cookies in the Caribbean, backed by its ISO 9002 total quality certification and the UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development) prize for innovation that it received in the category of medium-sized companies.

In 2009 the firm began to evaluate the need to respond to demands for greater flexibility in packaging processes, which would enable it to serve a growing market for its products in diverse countries in Central America and the Caribbean. Deciding on equipment to fill this need had to take into account benefits in productivity, cost, hygiene, quality, and after-sales support. It was therefore necessary to evaluate the options available in the market through careful study.

“We visited many companies and installations in Latin America and India,” says Mitra Sankar, Bermudez technical support manager. During this process, Mitra and colleagues had plenty of exposure to the ways in which products like theirs can be manufactured and handled, all of which helped them decide which systems would be most suitable for their Costa Rica plant.

The result of these comparisons led to the selection of two baggers from Kliklok-Woodman each paired with a 16-bucket combination scale from Yamato.

“We reviewed all of the packaging offerings from Kliklok-Woodman and carried out tests based on the widths of our bags and the production methods of the bagger machines made by Kliklok-Woodman and found that their equipment would be the best for packaging our products,” says Mitra.

For product weighing operations, the choice focused on solutions offered by Yamato, a global company with nearly a century of tradition in manufacturing weighers for diverse industries and applications. According to Mitra, key factors that tipped the scale in Yamato’s favor were outstanding precision, user-friendly operation, durability, and ease of cleaning and maintenance.

The installation at the plant also included metal detection equipment made by Fortress Technology and product-coding equipment from the Woodman Codeline series.

Reliable and efficient
The packaging and sealing process for banana or plantain chips begins with the ADW-516-SN Yamato multihead weighers, specially designed for snacks. The versatility of these weighers is quite varied. They can handle different types of snacks at different weights and presentations at speeds to 120 units/min, depending on the size and weight of the bag. They use a weight calculation system that selects the best combination of 4 to 6 weighing bins, which guarantees precision at the desired weight. This system ensures uniform distribution of the entire product to the feeding bins, and then to the weighing hoppers, where a load cell sends a signal for the quantity of product in the weighing hopper. The weigher then selects the proper hopper to achieve the most accurate weight possible. This model includes individual discharge chutes to increase speed while reducing the whirlpool effect on the product. It also reduces product deterioration while helping the packaging machinery to create better bags with cleaner seals.

Once that precise combination has been found, the product is discharged towards the bagger below, a Kliklok-Woodman Gemini II vertical bagger. A conveyor belt then moves the bags containing the product to an accumulation table for the final manual packaging process into cases for distribution.

Source: Kliklok-Woodman