May 26, 2022
FORTRESS REVOLUTIONIZES CONFECTIONERY METAL FLAKE AND FOIL DETECTION
Always known as an innovator in North America’s candy inspection market, Fortress Technology has launched yet another food safety first – a metal detector that inspects low profile, high value confectionery products vertically and horizontally concurrently to achieve the highest sensitivity on the planet.
The Interceptor DF (Divergent Field) is a result of the company’s longstanding expertize in metal detection and its more recent development of the two channel, two frequency Interceptor range. After speaking to several confectionery manufacturers about their inspection processes, the company discovered that many were experiencing some trouble detecting thin, flat metal flakes in their products.
Certain upstream applications – for example, mixing, conching, rolling, scoring and molding – can lead to smaller flake and shaving-shaped metal contaminants which are impossible to find on conventional single-plane metal detectors.
Fortress discovered that adding a second electromagnetic field to work in the vertical plane could solve this problem. Therein lay the foundations for the Interceptor DF. Performance wise, nothing else on the market comes close to the Interceptor DF when looking for thin, non-spherical metal contaminants in products, claims the company.
The Interceptor DF is especially sensitive to very thin metal contaminant flakes and foils that are difficult to detect on low profile foods, including chocolate, confectionery, nutrition bars, cookies and biscuits.
To increase confectionery safety, the Interceptor DF system addresses several previous limitations – notably orientation, size, geometry and position of metals. It’s especially reliable at detecting very thin flakes and foils that could be introduced to premium confectionery products, like chocolate, in the processing phases.
Innovation in action
Different to other multi-scan metal detectors on the market, the unique Fortress system uses multiple coil sets to instantaneously drive the electromagnetic fields in different directions. Rather than missing a metal contaminant because it hasn’t aligned with a specific field, the Interceptor DF looks for signals over a broad spectrum, from multiple angles.
The stronger disturbance from one field compensates for the weaker signal from another. This increases the probability of identifying and rejecting products containing non-spherical metals by over 100%, including difficult to spot flat metal flakes.
By taking control of something that’s inherently difficult to control – contaminant orientation – Fortress has once again proved itself to be a leader in the food safety inspection market.
To increase supply chain transparency and product traceability, automatic product tracking and data capture software is included as standard. These electronic records can be viewed, filtered and exported, and can supplement or replace manual documentation.
Ensuring ease of use and fast setup across mixed confectionery product lines, the Interceptor DF learns and recalls the signature of any given product with just one pass. Halo automatic testing can be added to reduce the risk of human error when manually testing the performance of the detection system.
