Ishida delivers perfect pasta weighing in small batches

Ishida multihead weighing technology has enabled Swiss pasta manufacturer Pasta Premium to cope with both growing sales and a move to paper bags, with three new Ishida weighers demonstrating impressive flexibility in the handling of small batches and allowing fast changeovers.

In line with its corporate sustainability goals, Pasta Premium has introduced paper bags for its Bschüssig pasta brand. This change in packaging, coupled with an increase in demand initially triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, led to the need for new packaging lines. 

As part of this, the company selected Ishida’s mid-range multihead weigher, the CCW-RVE, which is ideal for free-flowing dry products such as shortcut pasta, achieving outstanding accuracy at medium to high speeds. With many companies now switching to more sustainable forms of packaging, Ishida weighers can handle the latest formats including recyclable film and paper versions.

“We wanted to use Ishida multihead weighers for packing our pasta because we have already had very good experiences with previous Ishida models,” explained Simon Hofer, head of technology at Pasta Premium. 

In addition, reliable technical support has always been provided by Ishida’s local distributor, Itech AG in Rotkreuz. As a result, Pasta Premium commissioned Itech to design a packaging solution that included the Ishida weighers.

Two 14-head Ishida CCW-RVE weighers are handling short pasta at target weights from 100g to 450g. Speeds are up to 35 bags per minute, which is well within the capabilities of the weighers for this type of application, with accuracy to within 1g.

The pasta is fed through an inlet chute onto the weigher’s dispersion table. A load cell regulates the feed quantity, and individually controlled radial feeders convey the product evenly to the pool hoppers. The sift-proof pool and weigh hoppers maintain excellent product control for even very small pieces of pasta.

It takes just a fraction of a second for each weigher’s microprocessor to calculate the combination of weigh hoppers that come closest to the target weight, with advanced automatic feeder adjustment and 5-stage digital filtering enabling them to operate with outstanding accuracy. 

The pasta is then discharged directly into the paper bags via discharge chutes that incorporate anti-swirl fins to ensure a fast and accurate product transfer.

The third CCW-RVE model in operation at Pasta Premium is a 14-head GS (Gentle Slope) model, which is used for more delicate pasta such as tagliatelle and pasta nests. Developed especially for the high-performance and gentle weighing of fragile products, the CCW-RVE-GS features shallow angles and reduced drop distances between feeders, hoppers, and discharge chute, a gentle slope discharge chute with anti-swirl fins, and a ring shutter to prevent product collisions in the discharge chute. These features ensure that the delicate pasta transitions smoothly through the weigher and that product breakage is reduced to an absolute minimum.

The GS model runs at up to 28 weighments per minute, again with an excellent weighing accuracy of 1g per bag.

The three pasta lines are currently used in a two-shift operation. “All three Ishida weighers are proving to be highly reliable with only a minimum of maintenance required,” said Hofer.

The flexibility of the weighers is another major advantage. “Our company specializes in small batch sizes, which means we have to make a lot of things possible in a very short time,” he explained.

The three Ishida weighers facilitate this, allowing fast and frequent changeovers between more than 100 products by simply calling up the correct preset on their touch screens. The weighers are also very easy to operate, and the cleaning process takes very little time.

The team at Pasta Premium is very satisfied with the investment in Ishida weighing technology. “The multihead weighers help us to produce and pack small batch sizes efficiently and to secure a niche in the highly competitive pasta market,” Hofer adds. “The reliability and durability of the weighers and the long-term availability of spare parts also fit in with our sustainable corporate culture.”