Granola

UniTrak helped a major producer and supplier of cereals, snacks and pie crusts to solve their bulk materials conveying challenge. The customer is a major supplier to private label and co-packing companies, packaging for the ready-to-eat sector. The company’s attention to detail ensures that the quality of its products is equal to, or above that, of nationally known brands.

Customer: Major Producer of Cereals
Industry: Food
Materials: Granola, Soy Clusters, Toasted Coconut
Equipment: S-5 Open TipTrak™ Bucket Conveyor

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challenges

01 - challenges

The customer approached UniTrak to help solve a particular conveying challenge within their manufacturing facility: moving sticky product. In this particular application, the product to be conveyed was granola base, soy granola clusters, toasted coconut, bulk crisp topping, toasted oats and crisp rice.

Effectively conveying sticky product is a challenge for food producers as the product often adheres to the conveying equipment surfaces. This results in lower throughput yields and build-up of product, necessitating downtime to clean the equipment and improve material transfer.

In this particular application, warm product had to be taken from an oven and vertically conveyed over 20 feet. Any equipment supplied had to be capable of operating continuously, 24 hours per day, 6 days per week, 365 days per year.

custom-
erization

02 - challenges

To address the customer’s conveying challenge, UniTrak first conducted a detailed application review of the customer’s production process and materials. This review resulted in UniTrak proposing and supplying an open frame C-configuration S-5 TipTrak™ bucket conveyor with stainless steel construction. Since the unit would be servicing a food-grade application, the conveyor design was modified to eliminate all potential material entrapment sites, and the unit was designed for fast, effective wash down.

Additional customerization that UniTrak carried out on the TipTrak™ was to enclose all frame bolts in sleeves, together with the provision of an SEW Eurodrive with failsafe brake motor suitable for washdown duty. The unit was also equipped with stainless steel bearings, and all stainless steel fasteners were sealed with Loctite™ food grade anti-seize compound. A self-draining motor drip pan, double bucket knocker, and food-grade white nitrile rubber BeltChain were also provided on the unit. The TipTrak™ was also completely enclosed in stainless steel mesh personnel guards to ensure safe operation.

Adjustable waterproof bearings (shown in Figure 1) ensured total reliability of the TipTrak™ in use. Expanded mesh guarding (Figure 2) was supplied to protect workers without reducing visibility or compromising equipment accessibility.

solutions

03 - challenges

The S-5 TipTrak™ supplied to the customer proved to be an effective solution to the company’s conveying challenge. Once installed, the S-5 TipTrak was able to convey the product without any material sticking or
adhering to the buckets, confirming the results of the product test.

The 5-liter buckets on the S-5 TipTrak™ provided the conveying capacity and throughput desired by the customer. UniTrak’s commitment to total product reliability delivered a TipTrak™ that has performed as required over the 6 x 24 operating cycle.

The food-grade components installed on the TipTrak™ minimized the risk of product entrapment, while enabling a fast cleaning cycle which reduced the customer’s costs associated with equipment downtime and turnaround.