Safety of Walter Rau's products thanks to GARVENS and SAFELINE systems

Processing high-quality raw materials with great care – with this philosophy the food producer Walter Rau Lebensmittelwerke GmbH & Co. KG in Germany has become a specialist for margarine, cooking fats and oils.

"Product safety is the focal point of our work", explains Herbert Knapmeyer, Head of electrical engineering and automation in the Walter Rau production facilities.  "To us, the consistent development of our quality management system has always been a matter of course", continues Mr. Knapmeyer. The company Walter Rau complies with the process-oriented standard "DIN EN ISO 9001:2000" and successfully applies a HACCP concept. The Walter Rau production plant in Hilter, Germany, has first been audited as per IFS (International Food Standard) in since February, 2004, by the Fresenius Institute. The production plant achieved a top result: the highest IFS level right from the beginning and has consistently been able to maintain this ever since.   

Since the end of the seventies this quality-oriented company trusts in the innovative technical solutions from GARVENS and SAFELINE, both members of the METTLER TOLEDO PI Division. A checkweigher of the type S3 from Mettler-Toledo GARVENS checks the product weight in the production line of the margarine classic "Deli Reform". This line is a four-lane production line with one of the lanes passing the S3 checkweigher. The continuously captured weight data allows the checkweigher feedback control to automatically correct the filling behaviour of upstream fillers and thus to optimise the margarine portions. Automatic feedback control is one of the software options that are available with this model and many other Garvens checkweighers; it guarantees highest accuracy in filling products into containers and reduces expensive giveaway of product substance – thus it is a major asset to a quick return on investment. It does of course also ensure that any "off weights" not suitable for trade are reliably rejected. Another Garvens S3 checkweigher is used for Walter Rau's cooking fats and oils for large-scale consumers and industrial use. For example, the solid fat rods are checked at a conveyor speed of 20 meters per minute, the checkweigher weighing up to 40 rods in a minute. All Garvens checkweighers in the Walter Rau plant are connected with the statistical quality control system  FreeWeigh.Net which provides evidence of the fill quantities. This quality control system provides a multitude of reports for evaluating the production data. The stored article (product setup) details and the evaluation of production batches are a proof of the course of production which can be precisely traced back. Graphics enhance the reports so that production analyses even over long periods of time are facilitated.    Beside the checkweighers, the FreeWeigh.Net can also monitor the metal detectors used in the production lines. In another section of the "Deli Reform" margarine production line the margarine packs are conveyed in a single lane through a metal detector from Mettler-Toledo Safeline. The SAFELINE detector model Signature can be integrated in a range of standard or bespoke conveyor systems and excels in maximum detection sensitivity due to its modern multi-frequency technology. Even smallest metal particles can be reliably detected. The two METTLER TOLEDO companies GARVENS – the world leading checkweigher manufacturer – and SAFELINE – the renowned producer of metal detectors and X-ray in¬spec¬tion systems ¬– are now united under the METTLER TOLEDO "roof": in the PI Division METTLER TOLEDO offers the whole range of modern product inspection equipment, bundling the expertise. Thus METTLER TOLEDO is the worldwide leading supplier of in-line checkweighers metal detectors and X-ray inspection systems.

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METTLER TOLEDO is a leading global supplier of precision instruments and services. The Company is the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial and food retailing applications. The Company also holds top-three market positions in several related analytical instruments and is a leading provider of automated chemistry systems used in drug and chemical compound discovery and development. In addition, the Company is the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of metal detection and other end-of-line inspection systems used in production and packaging and holds a leading position in certain process analytics applications. Additional information about METTLER TOLEDO can be found at www.mt.com.

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