If you manufacture food, you will likely find a need for food grade screw conveyors in your plant. You can use these conveyors to mix up the food and to move it from one area to another in order to finish the product. Whether you are working with dairy, meat, poultry, citrus, sugar or anything else, you will need a food grade screw conveyor in order to be compliant with USDA or FDA guidelines. There are three options for food-grade conveyors, including thermo-conveyors, auger conveyors and spiral let-down chutes.
Thermo
All food grade conveyors must be made of stainless steel, but many times, you must work with heated or frozen items to keep them food-safe. If you make frozen meals to sell in grocery stores, you need to keep the hot items hot and the frozen product cold on its way to storage or shipping. Many times, it is important that the warm food stay warm until it is to be frozen and frozen items must stay chilled so that they retain their nutrients and do not allow bacteria to grow during the processing and finishing of the product. This is what a thermo-conveyor will do, and it can be made to food-grade specification in order to keep food sanitary and compliant with regulations set forth by the USDA, FDA and others.
Screw Conveyor
Screw conveyors can be designed to fit any space requirements and are similar to thermo conveyors in that they can be used for food. However, these conveyors do not keep things cold or hot and should only be used for things that do not require specific temperatures, such as cookies, pies and others.
It is perfect for moving finished goods to their shipping packages or even moving ingredients that do not need to stay cold or warm.
If you will be working with cheese or frozen items, along with non-hot or cold foods, then you may want to consider the thermo version just to be safe. You can always change the temperatures so that it will work with other foods.
Let-Down Chutes
Sometimes, manufacturers create the foods using other methods than food grade screw conveyors and simply want to move the finished food items along. This is perfect for crackers, snacks and pasta that doesn’t need specific temperatures or movement of the ingredients. You simply want to move these items from the plant to the packaging and shipping areas and these chutes will lay the items down gently and carefully to prevent breaking.
