It showcased the range at Interpack 2017 in Dusseldorf, Germany, earlier this year, and launched a number of applications for the snacks and bakery industries.
Almost 98% of Ishida Europe’s client base is in the food industry, ranging from “the very small to the very large”, to contract packers, to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), said Torsten Giese, marketing manager of Ishida Europe.
The company, which has been in business since 1893, has evolved to service a broad spectrum of clients in the food industry, ranging from very small to very large operations working with dry, frozen and fresh foods.
BakeryandSnacks met up with Giese to get an overall picture of the Japanese multinational that specialises in equipment like multihead weighers, checkweighers, bagmakers, tray sealers, seal testers, labellers and systems for X-ray systems.
Multihead weighers
The company’s stand at Interpack was its biggest yet, covering 973m2 of floor space, staffed by over 120 employees and showcasing 45 pieces of equipment.
Apart from highlighting the expanded range of hygienic multihead weighers, Ishida also introduced a new series of mid-range multihead weighers for the weighing of free-flowing and semi-sticky products for a dry, fresh and frozen food applications, including bakery and snacks.
An important benefit of these multihead weighers is that all models are pre-configured with Ishida Sentinel, a remote customer care software that provides live performance monitoring, said the company.
Snacks solutions
At Interpack, Ishida launched its Inspira rotary bagmaker for snack makers, which it claims has a reduced environmental impact.
It also contends the equipment “is the world’s fastest VFFS bagmaker” with top speeds of between 120 and 200 bags per minute.
Giese noted that a “big chunk” of Ishida’s business is X-ray inspection systems, which is rapidly moving into the bakery and snacks arena as the systems can detect more than just metal contaminants.
He said the machines can aid with quality control, such as detecting broken or missing products, or even that the biscuit sizes, for instance, differ – which a checkweigher won’t detect.
“The pressure is on supermarkets to make sure the products are safe,” putting the onus on the producer and packer, he said.