Benefits of conveyor belts in the food industry
Conveyor belt systems are mechanical material handling equipment that is designed to move a wide variety of products around a factory or plant. Despite conveyors originally being invented to transfer goods onto ships in ports, they are now used in a number of industries such as agriculture, automotive, and food and beverages.
Belt conveyor solutions have revolutionised the food industry by speeding up the movement of materials across long distances, reducing human labour, and minimising manual handling. In this article, we’ll be exploring how conveyor belts benefit the food industry, so you can get a greater insight into utilising them for your operations.
Eliminating or heavily reducing manual labour
Before food processing conveyor belts, materials were moved from one level to another by human labour. This was slow, and strenuous, and forced businesses to spend a lot of money on labour costs. With the right conveyor system in place, food manufacturers are able to cut employment costs across the board, including in recruitment, wages, training, and benefits.
These systems allow for automated transportation of products between distance that could be on varying elevations. Food belts can be used to move raw materials, products, or packaged products to various storage locations, production lines, or shipping.
Minimising the risk of accidents
Integrating an efficient conveyor belt system into a food plant can help it to become safer and more productive. This is because you will require fewer workers onsite, which in turn reduces the number of accidents in the workplace.
Thanks to the automation in these systems, employees can do their jobs safely, without being left vulnerable to incidents that could result in them getting injured or damaging the materials. Also, there is a lot less (if any at all) demand for carrying heavy loads, repeating certain movements, and a greatly minimised chance of injury or disease.
Improving efficiency and productivity
A food conveyor belt helps to save time by enabling materials to quickly be moved between levels. In addition, products can move in different directions, which is useful when they need to get to opposite ends of the processing plant. Modern conveyors take away the need to manually unload materials, so you don’t have to waste time monitoring unloads and workers. Due to the speed controls on the conveying systems, products can be moved at an optimal speed, reducing waste and any loss of materials.
Famously, Henry Ford was one of the pioneers of using a moving assembly line where he mass-produced cars back in 1913. As a result, he lowered the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours right down to only an hour and a half. Imagine what kind of food productivity levels you can achieve with the modern-day technology of conveyor processing belts.
Maintaining food safety and quality standards
Conveyor belts for the food industry are designed to be easy to clean and move food materials safely and efficiently. This is crucial to ensuring hygiene and food safety standards are met with no opportunities for cross-contamination to occur.
The high-quality mechanism also ensures any breakages are kept to a minimum (as long as it is properly maintained like with any other piece of equipment), so there is no unnecessary risk to compromising the quality of the food being produced or costing you money with lengthy downtime in operations.
Conclusion
Conveyor belts were first invented to improve how quickly materials could be moved from one point to another and take the pressure of manual labour off workers. Over the years though, the systems have advanced to offer more benefits. There’s no question that food processing conveyor belts are excellent investments that help production companies save money on labour costs, improve processes and productivity, and keep up with high food quality standards.
If you want to discuss implementing belt conveyor solutions into your food production facility, contact FESS Group today.