The crisps are produced at the company’s factory in South Africa and made by heat and pressure (‘popping’ like popcorn) rather than deep frying, which it claims uses less than half the fat of traditional crisps.
Saved 35% product giveaway
Using an Ishida CCW-SE-214W-1S/20-PB multihead weigher, the product is now packed into pillow bags at 35 packs per minute (ppm) for a 20g size and 20ppm for an 85g size.
Stephan Drees, operations manager, Nibbly Bits, told BakeryandSnacks it knew of Ishida from attending various tradeshows worldwide.
“We have not been disappointed with our decision to install the CCW-SE-214,” he said.
“The Ishida weigher has created a lot less stress during production, reducing product giveaway by as much as 35%. We now have a smooth-running operation delivering highly accurate packs.”
CCW-SE-214 has a weight sensor in the dispersion table that automatically adjusts the product feed and each feeder can be individually adjusted with a remote control unit. Stepper motors control hopper gate opening and closing profiles for consistent weighing speed and accuracy.
The machine can handle target weights of 20g and 85g, and a weighing tolerance (standard deviation) of 0.8g for both bag sizes. Product that was previously wasted is now placed into additional packs.
Founded in 1996, Nibbly Bits produces handcrafted rusks, biscuits, cookies and snacks, mainly for the Woolworths Group and the Granarie Co, sister marketing company.
It opened a new snacks factory five years’ ago producing rice cakes and pop crisps.