Case History: Weight-Loss Feeders Enhance Uniformity and Eliminate Rework

Algood Foods, Louisville, KY, manufactures peanut butter on a contract basis for supermarkets throughout the U.S. The company also supplies other manufacturers with peanut butter for further processing into cookies and confections. One of the most crucial operations of the peanut butter making process is the mixing of peanuts with the proper amounts of salt, sugar, and stabilizer. Depending upon the recipe called for in a given production run, each of these ingredients vary. For example, stabilizer may be cottonseed, palm, peanut, or any number of hydrogenated oils. Continuous mixing requires accurate ingredient feeding, and places heavy demands on both processing equipment and operator. Weigh belts with integrated volumetric feeders were being used for the proportioning of ingredients. During the course of operation, the ingredients would stick to the weigh belts. This caused inaccurate weight measurements and resulted in substandard product mixtures and rework. In extreme cases, substantial amounts of product were scrapped.