Checkweighers for packaged and unpackaged food are essential tools for accurate seafood, meat, and poultry weight control. These systems verify that products consistently meet weight specifications, helping to optimize production efficiency and reduce costs.

Under-weight or under-filled products can result in fines or recalls, as well as unhappy customers. Alternatively, over-weight or over-filled products can get expensive in terms of excess product giveaway.

Our IP69 checkweighers are designed to withstand the harsh environments of meat processing facilities. For example, a manufacturer needing a checkweigher for the beef industry may choose the C33 PlusLine WD Checkweigher, which offers reliable performance even in wet and cold conditions. This system is ruggedly built to endure the frequent washdown and sanitation requirements that are crucial for preventing harmful bacterial growth on meat production equipment.

Metal contamination in meat processing poses a significant safety risk for consumers. There are many different ways that metal contaminants can enter meat, poultry, and seafood products during the production process. Raw seafood from suppliers may contain fishhooks or bits of wire. Beef or chicken pieces may contain barbed wire or buck shot. Faulty or poorly maintained processing equipment can break down leading to small metal pieces entering the product.

Our advanced metal detectors for meat, poultry, and seafood can identify even the smallest ferrous, non-ferrous, and stainless-steel metal contaminants. These systems are optimized for challenging environments for consistent detection performance. They are especially effective for meat items that exhibit "product effect," which can cause false positives in products with high salt or moisture content or frequent temperature variations.

To reduce false rejects in meat items known for product effect, our Profile Advantage Metal Detector is an ideal industrial metal detector for meat processing. The Profile Advantage operates with Multi-Simultaneous Frequencies and Product Signal Suppression technology, which significantly improves metal detection sensitivity and virtually eliminates false rejects.

X-ray inspection technology can detect various foreign body contaminants, including bone, metal, glass, rubber, and high-density plastics. It can also perform additional quality and integrity checks, such as fill level control, mass and weight verification, and completeness checks.

X-ray inspection can be used at any critical control point during meat production and packaging to inspect for foreign material contaminants wherever they are likely to enter the product. X-ray is ideal to use at the end of the production line to perform final inspections for foreign object detection, completeness checks and integrity checks on packaged products.

Dedicated technology for meat x-ray inspection is especially useful when inspecting products like chicken or fish, where unwanted bones can easily wind up in the final product. For manufacturers needing machines for fish or chicken bone x-ray inspection, our Dual Energy X-ray Inspection systems excel at identifying these types of physical contaminants with high accuracy.

Machine vision technology is crucial for maintaining the packaging and label quality of meat, poultry, and seafood. METTLER TOLEDO Vision Inspection systems are equipped with smart cameras and advanced imaging software to verify various important aspects of labels and packaging, including:

• Label placement and quality
• Allergen information
• Expiration dates
• Nutritional information
• Packaging damage checks

These systems help maintain consistent product appearance and packaging integrity. This is essential for a positive consumer impression of the brand and for providing customers with the correct nutritional and safety information. For example, pet food manufacturers who need label inspection for cans of meat-based dog food can choose our V15 Label Inspection System. This system performs 360° inspection to detect defects in canned meat products. The V15 is also an ideal vision system for seafood quality control when used to inspect cans of tuna, salmon, or other canned seafoods. Vision inspection helps reduce product recalls and supports compliance with industry standards.