FoodArt to increase snack production at its Russian plant

The company recently installed an Ishida 14 head multihead weigher to handle a variety of dried fruits and nuts at different target weights and will further increase production and packing speeds – up to 100 bags per minute.

Sticky dried fruit

Pavel Sorokin, chief engineer, FoodArt, said the Ishida weigher is currently packing 30 product variations into bag sizes from 50g to 1kg. 

With such a diverse product range, the company needed a weigher that could handle different product types, including sticky dried fruit such as dates and dried apricots, at a large number of weights.

“Many of these products are expensive so minimizing giveaway is vital​,” said Sorokin.

“The flexibility and ease of operation of the weigher also enable us to be highly responsive to customer orders​.

“It means operators can react very quickly if we get an urgent order from one of our supermarket customers​.”

Private labels

The Russian snack food provider supplies products sourced from across the world to retailers, under its own brand, supermarket private labels and foodservice outlets.

The factory has up to 20 product changeovers on each shift using the machine’s Remote Control Unit. Three people are required to work on the line at any one time with speeds up to 40 bags per minute, depending on pack size. 

Depending on orders, the Ishida multihead weigher operates one or two 12 hour shifts each day.