Weinrich produces hollow chocolate shapes and chocolate bars at its production facility in Herford. It has relied on products from the global manufacturer Minebea Intec for many years, as can be seen by the many Vistus metal detectors and the X-ray inspection system installed at various points in the production chain.

The challenge for a chocolate bar production line was to ensure reliable metal detection even with multiple bars of chocolate next to each other. With chocolate in particular, there is often a strong product effect as the shape of the bars is not always totally identical, which presents a huge challenge for a metal detector. The metal detector Vistus impresses with a wide frequency range for the ultimate detection performance and reliability and its compact design makes it perfect for integrating into existing systems. The chocolate bars are checked at Weinrich using the inspection solution before they are then packed in the next step.

The chocolate bars are sorted into a line on the conveyor belt by a stacking edge, before they go through the detection coil. If a foreign object is then detected while the products are passing through the coil, a cylinder tightens the conveyor belt, removing the contaminated batch from the production cycle through the resulting gap, it is then checked further. After the contaminated bars have been ejected, the telescopic conveyor returns to normal and production continues.

Minebea Intec's OEM detection solution not only ensures reliable metal detection, but it is also ideal for integration into the customer's existing production system. This meant Minebea was able to ensure a reliable process together with the customer.