Arevalo Foods is a family-owned company producing more than 3.5 million tortillas per day at their facility in Montebello, CA, USA. To enhance product safety and brand protection the processor installed three of METTLER TOLEDO Safeline's Profile Advantage metal detectors at their production lines as a final step before case packing.
Since tortillas are a particular challenge for most metal detectors, Arevalo was looking for a solution that would allow them to inspect products with high temperatures and a moisture content about 30 percent. Based on their positive experience with METTLER TOLEDO metal detection, they decided to install three Profile Advantage metal detectors to inspect different types of tortillas: heat-pressed, die-cut and hand-stretched. The Profile Advantage systems identify and reject every type of metal in the most difficult applications by using multi-simultaneous frequencies to create a reference point, leading to maximized sensitivity.
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Arevalo is not only convinced by the accuracy and sensitivity of the metal detectors, but also by the flexibility of the systems. In addition to the three main types of corn and flour tortillas, the manufacturer also produces organic, gluten-free, non-GMO and flavored options as well as pre-cut chips and strips and fully-topped pizzas. The wide variety of tortilla types, sizes and additional products for inspection creates a vital need for fast changeovers. Due to the different products it is not unusual for Arevalo to switch their lines as often as four or five times in a single shift. The Profile Advantage system allows to store up to 100 different recipes leading to fast and simplified product changeovers. Adding new products is also very easy due to the single-pass auto set-up routine quickly analyzing the new product and determining the ideal settings. In a final step the data is automatically saved in the system's memory. While the process of adding a new product takes a couple of minutes, selecting a pre-programmed recipe can be done in only a minute.
"The recipes also reduce false rejects by ensuring the proper settings are selected every time. Because we don't rework products, any false rejects mean lost yield and a waste of our time and money", explains Alex Arevalo, President of Arevalo Foods. In order to reliably remove rejected packages of all shapes and sizes from the line METTLER TOLEDO offers customizable reject systems.
"Our Profile Advantage systems go far beyond regulatory requirements. They give us a peace of mind that we are only putting out the very best products and protecting our brand private label customers and consumers", states Daniel Arevalo, Vice President of Arevalo Foods.
