Food manufacturing machine manufacturer, Delta Food Systems, has developed a new solution to help deposit meat mixes on a new line, for savoury products such as sausage rolls. With the machine, the chassis supports a hopper that holds 250kg of meat at maximum capacity.
This is fed to an auger box before entering a pump that feeds material into a ten-lane distribution head which deposits the mix into ten equal portions in either spot deposit or continuous mode.
During the development stage, however, the company needed a pump capable of working with the highly viscous meat mix which has solid particulates up to 30mm in size.
To meet requirements, Watson-Marlow supplied a pulse-free SPS2.5 MasoSine pump, which is capable of displacing an even volume with each revolution.
The SPS series pump is suitable for industrial and sanitary applications involving high pressures (up to 15 bar). Capacity is up to 91.2m3/hr, and its gentle, low shear action makes it well suited to the safe pumping of highly viscous materials. The single rotor design helps preserve and maintain product integrity and eliminates the need for fragile timing gears associated with rotary lobe pumps.
Watson-Marlow also helped specify the correct type of seals and scraper gates that were required to handle the specific viscous meat mix being transferred. Delta Food Systems worked with the company to fit the pumps with servo-drives able to stop and start the pump in a controlled way and create individual portions. Alternatively, the system can deposit and leave a gap if required, before depositing again. The whole machine is PLC controlled with a user-friendly HMI.
