Feature Tracking & Traceability
acheldre Mill in mid-Wales dates back to 1575 and was taken over by former Royal Mail workers Matt and Anne Scott in 2002. Initially planning to operate the site for camping, they were inspired by the idea of preserving and building on the mill’s heritage.
Modern detection for old mill B
Solutions from Lock Inspection Systems, including automated metal detection, is enabling a centuries old Welsh mill to enhance its quality control
They turned the water mill from a working museum, grinding a tonne of grain a month, into a thriving cottage industry, producing premium stone ground bread, home baking and spe- ciality flours including spelt, rye, wholemeal and oak smoked varieties. Demand means that the stones are now turned by motor as opposed to water, but aside from this, the production methods are very much in keeping with tradition. To ensure they do not default on their commitment to supply unadulterated, stone-ground flour to its high end cus- tomers, the Scotts have implemented a three tier quality control system which utilises magnets, receivers and auto- mated metal detection equipment from Lock Inspection Systems. “We might operate from a centuries old mill but we have adopted the latest food production standards including a full HACCP system,” said Matt Scott. “We’ve never had any issues with metallic contamination, but with the quality of our product of paramount importance, we cannot afford to be complacent. As in any food produc- tion environment there is always a chance that a problem within the upstream manufacturing process, for example, a bolt coming off an auger, could result in metal entering the
product flow. Deploying metal detec- tion gives us the reassurance that even if this does happen, each bag of flour that leaves the mill will still be conta- minant-free.”
Detection in operation
Bacheldre Mill has two Lock units in operation. One, a compact throat metal detector which inspects flour as it flows into bulk 16kg and 25kg bags, is located within the mill itself. The other conveyorised system is located in the packing hall, where it performs a final check on 500g, 1kg and 1.5kg retail bags of flour before they are packed into transit cases. Approximately 4,000 retail bags of flour pass through the inspection unit each day.
The metallised labels on the retail packs could potentially cause prob- lems for some metal detectors, but as Rob Gray, from Lock Inspection Systems explained, Lock’s multi-fre- quency units are engineered to find metal within metallised packaging without the risk of false rejects. “Our multi-frequency systems work within a range of three crystal tuned fre- quencies and will automatically select the optimum frequency according to product characteristics. So when the unit is confronted with metallised pack- aging, it will operate at a frequency which can ignore this but which still delivers excellent detection results.” Bacheldre Mill also uses Lock’s pro- prietary DDS software to assist with detector set-up. “By optimising the product settings and detector parame- ters, this software ensures the highest sensitivity levels are achieved when inspecting metallised packs,” con- cluded Gray.
Lock Inspection Systems
www.lockinspection.com T: 0161 624 0333
Automation SEPTEMBER 2013
Above: Bacheldre Mill in mid-Wales dates back to 1575
Below left: Bacheldre Mill counts Waitrose, delicatessens, independent food halls and Michelin star restaurants among its
customers. All of these high end establishments expect the very highest quality standards from their suppliers
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