The company said foods, such as nutrition bars and cookies, typically need to undergo a number of manufacturing processes, including mixing, conching, rolling, scoring and moulding.
Therefore, the use of automated equipment to perform these tasks can make products more susceptible to smaller shaving-type metal contaminants.
Fortress said the new machine, which is called the Interceptor DF (Divergent Field), has multiple electromagnetic fields that are oriented in different directions, which is like ‘running multiple metal detectors all at once.
‘Rather than missing a metal contaminant because it hasn’t aligned with a specific frequency, the Interceptor DF looks for signals over a broad spectrum from multiple angles,’ added the company.
Outperforming X-ray
Fortress claimed the Interceptor DF’s detection capabilities outperform many of the technologies currently on the market, yet it is only about 25% of the cost of a new X-ray system.
The company told BakeryandSnacks, ‘[Our] system can be customized to different aperture sizes depending on the products being inspected… It is especially sensitive to ultra-thin contaminants that can be missed by other technologies.
‘As a result, it reports a 100% increase in sensitivity compared to single or dual frequency food metal detectors and an exceptional level of improvement to identifying and rejecting contaminants that are non-spherical.
‘To increase supply chain transparency and product traceability, automatic product tracking and data capture software are also included [in the machine].’