Ajax Equipment, Bolton, UK, has installed a stainless steel hopper and inclined screw feeder at the Midlands plant of Essentia Protein Solutions, a leading supplier to the food processing industry. Pork rinds are discharged from the hopper into an inclined twin screw feeder and deposited on to a belt conveyor where they undergo visual inspection. The previous hopper geometry and screw design caused bridging, resulting in erratic flow. In addition to overloading the large diameter single screw feeder, it also made inspection more difficult owing to the sudden large volume of rinds on the inspection conveyor.

The Ajax solution offers several processing advantages. The hopper features steep walls and a more generous outlet size that promotes material discharge, allowing pork material to flow into the screw feeder consistently. By utilising a twin screw feeder with large diameter screws and variable pitch geometry, the hopper extraction profile has improved as well as the ability to cope with variation in the size of pork rind. The feeder’s casing has a specialised profile to ensure effective transfer while allowing for covers to serve inspection and cleaning needs. The whole unit sits on a mobile framework to allow the machine to be relocated on site, away from the main production areas for cleaning and sanitising. www.ajax.co.uk 

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