If your canning factory is like most, you probably have a "bath" area for the fruits and/or vegetables that your factory processes. This usually entails a conveyor belt that rolls the produce along while rolling it around in a lot of water. Then the produce still has to be sorted as it rolls past factory workers. There is actually a shortcut to this whole process, one which can improve company efficiency and increase the healthiness and cleanliness of the produce and your plant. It is sifting screens, and here is how to use them in your fruit.
The Graduated Sifter and Screens to Accommodate Round Fruits
A graduated sifter (if you have never seen one) is a vertical piece of equipment that has several shelves stacked on top of each other. Items to be sifted are loaded in the top of the sifter, and then the screens sift largest to smallest. In your canning factory, you could equip the sifting shelves with custom screens that would then allow the larger pieces of round fruit to sit on top and the smaller fruits to slip through to another shelf. As the fruit is sifted according to size, it can be washed.
Washing the Fruit at the Sifter
Meanwhile, you can install an overhead waterfall washer for the fruit. The washer is a chute that releases "x" amount of gallons per minute over the top of the sifter as the fruit goes in. Because the screens in the shelves are already busily releasing and sorting fruit by size, it makes perfect sense for the washer to be cleaning the fruit and then the wastewater falls out the bottom of the sifter. (For this reason, you will also want to install a large floor drain underneath the sifter so that the floor remains relatively dry.)
Transferring Washed Fruit to Conveyors
After the fruit has been washed and sifted by size, then your workers can either open the trays and release the fruit down a short chute to a waiting conveyor belt or they can manually remove each shelf tray and empty the fruit into waiting buckets that will then carry the fruit down the conveyor. It is during this step that workers can remove stems and leaves that still remain on the fruit so that none of that ends up in your fruit cups, fruit sauces, etc. The biggest portion of the work is conducted in one spot of the factory before the fruit is moved to a chopper and/or cooker/preserver next, eliminating a lot of the hassle of trying to sort by human eyes.
For sifting screens, contact a company such as Midwestern Industries Inc.
