Case study: Twin City Foods upgrades sort capabilities with VERYX optical sorters
Twin City Foods has been a leader in the frozen vegetable industry since its start in the 1940s. Processing hundreds of millions of pounds of product annually, their frozen peas, corn, carrots and green beans are sold around the world to foodservice customers and in private-label retail packs. This year, Twin City Foods partnered with Key Technology and installed two VERYX optical sorters at the end of their lines that process both frozen peas and corn. VERYX removes all types of foreign material and processor-specified product defects to help ensure high product quality while maximizing yield.
“Our customers are very discerning. While other frozen vegetable processors might be limited to offering only certain product grades, we pride ourselves on having the flexibility to accommodate any grade our customers ask for,” said Dan Munko, vice president of operations at Twin City Foods. “Reliably achieving more unique grades requires sophisticated sorting, so we decided it was time to update our flagship facility in Pasco, Washington, with the latest technology. We wanted optical sorters that would maximize our food safety and ensure exact product quality specifications, while also increasing yield, achieving high throughputs and simplifying our operations.”
“We’ve been partnering with Key Technology since we bought our first sorter from them back in 2006, and we’ve always had a fantastic experience working with them,” said Raul Martinez, division manager at Twin City Foods’ Pasco facility. “We did our due diligence and looked at other sorting equipment suppliers, but it was quickly clear that Key and their VERYX optical sorter was the right choice for us.”
Twin City Foods selected two of Key’s VERYX B210 belt-fed sorters, the highest capacity model in the VERYX family, which are each capable of processing up to 40,000 pounds of frozen vegetables per hour. Both sorters are equipped with top-mounted off-axis cameras and laser sensors as well as Key’s Pixel Fusion detection module to achieve Twin City Foods’ rigorous food safety and product quality objectives.
Recognizing the color, size, shape and structural property of every object, these VERYX sorters find and remove all types of foreign materials, including metal, plastic, insects, extraneous vegetative matter (EVM) and more, as well as a variety of defects such as off-color products and pulled corn kernels.
“EVM is an especially big concern when processing peas and corn since stems, pods and husks can come in from the field during harvesting. We have many steps to ensure EVM is removed during processing, and our VERYX sorters are a fantastic final quality check before packaging,” explained Martinez.
“We have recipes saved in each sorter’s memory to accommodate different varieties of corn and peas, different product grades and different growing conditions, which can affect taste, texture, the EVM and more,” added Martinez. “We’re easily able to tailor our VERYX programming to remove exactly what we need to, even when there are significant changes in incoming product.”
To further maximize equipment uptime and sorting performance, Twin City Foods’ VERYX systems are equipped with RemoteMD, which enables a two-way remote session between the sorter and a Key service technician to simplify diagnostics and speed the resolution of any issues.
“At the end of the day, what matters is our VERYX sorters help us provide a positive experience for the consumer every time, no matter the characteristics of the incoming batch of product,” concluded Munko. “By removing all foreign material and the right defects to ensure high-quality product, VERYX keeps our customers coming back to Twin City Foods.
Key Technology
