Valka has installed a new grading and packing line for fresh fish products at Nyfiskur in Sandgerdi, Iceland.
According to Valka, the processing line not only requires less labour but it is also more accurate than traditional grading equipment, and it improves product handling and yield. The packing line packs fresh fish products automatically into packs of fixed weight with minimum give-away. The processing line consists of the Valka RapidAligner (which grades, selects the right combination of pieces to make the perfect pack and aligns the pieces into the packs), in-feed equipment for the fish and in-feed equipment for boxes.
Traditional grading equipment typically scrapes the fish off a conveyor belt into a bin. The batch is then released from the bin to a person who aligns the product into the boxes. The main disadvantage of this arrangement is there is drop loss and some percentage of the fish gets damaged, which both reduces yield and accuracy. As the RapidAligner gently aligns the fish directly into the final box all extra handling and yield loss is eliminated.
One of the greatest benefits with the new grader is that it can obtain better accuracy than traditional graders. Furthermore the results can be obtained with fewer gates than was possible before. The trick is that the RapidAligner stores up to 16 pieces with known weight. With this additional information, a far superior optimisation algorithm can be used than if only one piece had known weight, as is most common in current grading equipment.
The throughput of the grader is 60-80 pieces/minute and it is able to handle the throughput from a typical filleting machine. The RapidAligner can grade the product after weight and quality as well as selecting the correct pieces in a box to make the perfect pack. As only 2-4 discharge gates are needed for each grade to make very accurate batches, a grader of a feasible size can be used to make accurate packs in multiple grades at the same time. The grader can also be used to align certain product grades onto a conveyor which can feed directly into other processing equipment - for example IQF-freezers. The grader can thus be used to pack the best fish into high-value packs while fish of less quality is fed fully automatically into an IQF-freezer.
