TORONTO – Fortress Technology revealed its newest equipment, a washdown checkweigher, makes use of dynamic load cell sensors that weigh dairy products in motion with up to ± 0.25 gram accuracy.

Designed for dairy producers with inflation and rising farmgate operational costs in mind, the Raptor Checkweigher counteracts wasteful and costly product giveaway with premium inspection and weight checks.

Additionally, the new equipment from Fortress targets operational inefficiencies, such as upstream product giveaway, non-conforming food packs and packaging waste.

The Raptor can be integrated with existing metal detection equipment to existing product feed and packaging lines.

Per Fortress, the in-motion, three-belt checkweigher can capture thousands of sample readings of individual packs every second.

“The level of control digital checkweighing gives versus batch checks on a fixed scale means the savings in reduced giveaway, especially on premium food products, is very quick,” said Eric Garr, regional sales manager for Fortress. “In some cases, payback occurs in just several weeks or less.”

With the Raptor’s three-belt design, products are separated on the first belt, then presented to the middle weighing belt, before out of specification products are rejected into a raised bin on the third belt.

The equipment also can keep track of the average weight over a set timeframe, which, for example, can be useful for companies that produce ice cream with inclusions.

“Where the density of these products might shift, the Raptor automatically regulates the target weight tolerances without human intervention,” Garr said. “Although there are ‘hard stop’ limits, mean weight tracking helps to accommodate products where volume is maintained but the weight shifts.”

The Toronto-based company’s Raptor Checkweigher can check packs weighing up to 17 lbs. Up to 500 different weight and product categories can be pre-programmed into the equipment.