Marel unveils new salmon scanner
THE international seafood processing equipment company Marel has introduced a new scanner, which it claims acts as an efficient and accurate device for checking the quality of salmon fillets after filleting, trimming, and skinning.
The Icelandic company aims to give salmon processors the benefit of monitoring and registering the quality of products, allowing them to grade and sort them according to individual criteria or customer specifications.
Marel said its QC scanner works through a 2D vision camera, which rapidly scans the surface of each fillet and detects melanin and blood spots, trimming and skinning defects, and levels of brown meat.
It can also identify the colour of selected areas to colour grade the fillets according to industry standards.
A 3D vision camera then estimates the fillet weight by measuring volume. This feature can be used to indicate the yield trend, which helps determine when the filleting machine needs adjusting.
Marel said: ‘All settings are easily adjusted on the scanner’s user friendly colour touchscreen. Programmes with different tolerances can be stored so that settings can be changed quickly and easily.
‘The QC scanner is available with a single or dual-gate system to sort fillets for rework or to meet certain quality criteria.
‘With the dual-gate system, you can sort fillets onto a conveyor while simultaneously pushing others to the side for manual rework.
‘Information about quality is collected in real time and stored in the Innova database, so you can analyse, sort the material, quality grade and optimise the quality process.’
Meanwhile, Marel is hosting a European processing event, the Whitefish ShowHow, in the Danish capital Copenhagen on September 25.
The company said: ‘By bringing industry leaders together under the
same roof with equipment and software specialists, the event is also expected to generate the conversations and innovations that will continue to shape the future of processing in coming years.’
Marel said demonstrations will run all day, showing visitors how its equipment and software can ensure processors better utilise the raw material, to reduce processing time and to increase traceability.
‘In addition to the live demonstrations, visitors will be invited to experience cutting edge innovation and technology via virtual reality,’ the company added.