French fries are becoming more popular: for many years, the amount of frozen potato goods consumed per capita has been rising.

To satisfy the demand for frozen French fries from both food service and stores, potato processing expert Aviko Germany has been operating at maximum capacity.

The business needed to replace the weighing systems with next-generation versions to stick to its expansion plan. An important factor in Aviko’s increased production productivity is the new Ishida multihead weighers.

At its location in Rain, Bavaria, Aviko Germany uses fresh spuds to make frozen potato products. Every hour, about 40 tons of tubers are processed, most of which are made into French fries, with the remainder being made into wedges and fried potatoes. High-performance packaging systems are necessary for such massive production quantities. Eight Ishida multihead weighers are available for this use at Aviko’s production facility; they are arranged in a striking phalanx adjacent to one another.

For packing in bags with fill weights ranging from 450 g to 2.5 kg, the machines weigh the frozen potato products. This indicates that the weigher/bagmaker systems are operating around the clock and are fully utilized.

“To increase output, we began gradually replacing the existing multihead weighers with new machines in 2023,” Stefan Leuker, Head of Maintenance at Aviko Deutschland GmbH, mentioned.

Three of the aged weighers have now been replaced with units from Ishida’s high-performance CCW-RV series, and additional orders have been scheduled.

Output Boosted by 40%

The newly installed multihead weighers from the CCW-RV series have significantly increased performance at Aviko. For example, when filling French fries into 450g bags, the manufacturer can run up to 70 packs per minute (ppm) instead of 50 ppm with the previous models. The frozen chips are fed from above onto the dispersion table of each 14-head weigher and are then transferred by 14 vibratory feeders precisely to the pool and weigh hoppers. Five-stage digital filtering of the weighing signal shortens the settling time of the hoppers so that a maximum number of them can be used for the next calculation.

The software determines the three best combinations in a weighing cycle, checks them again, and selects the one that comes closest to the target weight. This enhances weighing accuracy and -consistency and guarantees consistent high speeds. But the high-speed operation is by no means at the expense of weighing accuracy: According to Stefan Leuker, a 2.5kg bag is only overfilled by 5g. To put this into perspective: this value corresponds roughly to the weight of a single frozen chip.

Unshakeable

The new multihead weighers from Ishida are not only fast and accurate but also extremely robust.

“Unlike our old weighers, vibrations from the production environment do impact on weighing accuracy,” Leuker declared.

The CCW-RV series features Ishida’s proprietary Anti-Floor-Vibration (AFV) System. To protect the loadcells, this technology compensates for any external vibrations to maintain the highest weighing accuracy. At each of the four corners of the weigher’s main body, load cells measure the external floor vibrations. Clever software then filters out the effects of these vibrations on the weight calculations.

High Availability

Aviko also benefits from rapid product changeovers, which take place several times a week using presets. Settings for new products can be configured conveniently using the automatic set-up function. Even the fortnightly wet cleaning process causes only minimal downtime. All components, including the drive units, are protected to IP69K, thus the weighers can be cleaned quickly with high-pressure and steam jet equipment. Sloping surfaces allow liquids to run off and the machines to dry quickly.

Energy-saving Weighers

The CCW-RV weighers also stand out due to their very low energy consumption. At full capacity, the machines consume around 20 percent less power than conventional multihead weighers. In addition, economical operating modes “Half-Power” and “Eco Mode” can be selected, which further reduce consumption by up to 50%.

“The machines are proving to be energy savers and that, of course, comes in handy during audits,” Stefan Leuker mentioned.

Investment for Growth

“With our new Ishida multihead weighers, we can pack a far greater product volume and meet the increasing market demand. Overall, we are very satisfied with the machines,” says Stefan Leuker. Aviko expects the amortization period to be 2.5 years.

Aviko Deutschland GmbH, based in Rain am Lech, is a full-range supplier of chilled and frozen potato products and is the market leader. The company supplies its products to more than 1000 wholesalers in Germany and also serves the Swiss and Austrian markets. Aviko Germany is a subsidiary of the Dutch food processing company Aviko, headquartered in Steenderen. The company is one of the world’s largest potato processors and is backed by the financial strength of its Dutch parent company Royal Cosun, which has an annual turnover of EUR3.7bn.