Four Spiroflow T6 bulk bag dischargers installed at the Heanor, Derbyshire plant ofMatthew Walker, help the company to make its quality Christmas puddings to 60 different recipes for its many customers.

The company, part of Northern Foods, is the UK’s biggest producer of Christmas puddings and supplies them to major supermarkets and leading department stores, as well as exporting to over a dozen countries worldwide. Production continues throughout the year, but builds up from July onwards with up to 300 people working to make 16 million puddings each year. Matthew Walker required the dischargers to handle a number of ingredients which are elevated from the storage bay, and taken through a wall into weigh hoppers in the mixing room.

Compact

The T6 dischargers are installed in-line, and their compact design ensures that no difficulties arise on account of the limited headroom available. The essential feature of the T6 unit is that it incorporates its own hoisting equipment, so that the bags can be lifted from floor level without the need for a forklift truck. One person is able to operate the four dischargers, each of which incorporates a Russell Finex sieve at the base. Other features include massage units to promote flow with difficult materials, and pinch bars to arrest discharge when less than the full contents of a bulk bag need to be delivered.

Each discharger is equipped with a Spiroflow Model 55 conveyor, which rises steeply to elevate the materials into the mixing room at ceiling height. These conveyors are of the flexible spiral type, and may be driven in reverse for the purpose of cleaning the tubes. A discharge chute to each inlet at the base of the hoppers is also provided for use when this facility is employed

Spiroflow has also published a comprehensive 12 page guide to selecting bulk bag discharge equipment, outlining selection criteria. It is particularly useful for a processor who is confronted with bulk bags for the first time, or when upgrading basic hanging rigs to eliminate dust and improve control of product flow from bulk bags.

Major advances have been made in bulk bag discharge equipment over the past five years and processors now have an even wider choice, including dischargers with integral hoists, low profile models, mobile units, multi-purpose rigs for bags and rigid bins, as well as standard dischargers with control flow by volume or weight.

This article is reproduced from Solids Handling.