Key Technology COMPASS optical sorter for IQF products

Key Technology has introduced its COMPASS optical sorter for individually quick frozen (IQF) products such as fruits, vegetables, seafood, poultry and meat. Designed to identify and remove foreign material (FM) and product defects to protect food safety and final product quality, the unit is easy to use with simplified operation, cleaning and maintenance.

The sorter is suitable for whole products, slices, dices and crumbles as well as product mixes. Using in-air inspection, this chute-fed sorter ‘sees’ all sides of the product with no blind spots. It detects and rejects plastic, glass, metal, stones and other FM including extraneous vegetable matter (EVM) like leaves and toxic weeds. Processor-specified product defects are also removed from the line with virtually no false rejects. When inspecting product mixes, the sorter can be programmed to ensure the ingredients are correctly proportioned. Located at the end of the processing line, immediately prior to packaging, the advanced sorter is designed to help ensure final product quality.

Recipe-driven programming is designed to ensure consistent sort performance on every product run, which is especially valuable in high-changeover applications.

Featuring a modular design, the sorter is available in multiple sizes suitable for a range of applications and capacity requirements. Object-based recognition facilitates shape sorting algorithms, while intelligent ejection maximises sort accuracy and minimises false rejects.

Every unit is equipped with Key Discovery, a suite of data analytics and reporting software that enables the sorter to collect, analyse and share data about every object flowing through the system.