If your food processing plant is manually filling shredded pork, chicken, beef, surimi, flaked tuna, or naturally fermented veggies, it is likely that you are losing profits related to the amount of manual labor required. Additional profit losses can be attributed to product giveaway due to inaccurate weights. Marlen’s filling equipment can automate the filling process while increasing weight accuracy. Marlen’s solution reduces the need for physical barriers such as plexiglass dividers that take up valuable floor space to separate meat and poultry processing workers to limit the spread of COVID-19. Last but certainly not least – the Marlen filler eases the pain in finding and recruiting hard to find team members to operate the lines in your facility!
Marlen’s filling equipment automates the “hand filling” process
Here is how it works: the slide and bowl fill mechanism make possible the gathering of hot or cold, moist products consistent filling into the most common packaging formats. The Marlen solution is known for handling tough applications that are often referred to as “hand fill only” products i.e., fine/medium or course shredded meats, flaked fish, naturally fermented veggies, moist chewing tobacco, shredded surimi, par-cooked diced chicken and more.
Marlen’s 4- and 6-PAK fillers can be designed to seamlessly integrate with thermoform/fill/seal equipment as well as rotary pouch sealers (simplex and duplex). The Marlen filler can also integrate with lines that fill cans, plastic/glass jars, and pre-formed meat trays.
Laborsaving, accurate and repeatable outcome with automated filling process.
Processors can achieve a fill weight accuracy as low as one standard deviation equal to +/- 2% target fill weight. This eliminates product giveaway and increases profits.
Food processors can expect accurate product placement into packaging formats, reducing seal contamination found in manual processes.
Fill weights are easily adjusted manually or via the optional servo motor to maintain a tight range in sealed package weights. Package weights are repeatable and consistent, production run after production run.
Hygienic design for safe production of filled products
The Marlen filler can be supplied with a storage/cleaning cart to safely store the change parts that will be removed for sanitation. The removed part has a place on the cart for storage that is identified with a laser etched silhouette of the part and part number.
The entire filler is constructed of type 304 stainless steel and UHMW plastics. The base frame consists of an open channel weldment (no welded – enclosed tube). The protective covers are perforated stainless steel material allowing for optimal viewing within the structure.
Redeploy manual labor and eliminate human intervention for more sanitary packaging
We have found that existing shredded meat filling lines consist of 8 -14 team members manually filling buckets, then weighing the bucket and adding or eliminating product to obtain the desired weight in the bucket, then hand-depositing the product into the packaging machine.
When utilizing Marlen’s accurate, laborsaving, and hygienic automatic filling solution, food plants can redeploy “hard to find” labor to other areas of the plant. By eliminating the team members required to manually fill, food processors are able to better protect the product during packaging from germs, airborne pathogens and bacteria that may transfer to the packages or from team member to team member.
