Great Kitchens relies on Mettler-Toledo Safeline to ensure product quality and food safety - Case Studies

Quality rules in the growing “take and bake” pizza market, where Great Kitchens, a private label manufacturer of frozen pizzas, takes great care to produce only the best. To ensure the highest product quality and food safety, Great Kitchens, based in Romeoville, Ill., relies on PowerPhasePLUS metal detectors from Mettler-Toledo Safeline on each of its four production lines.

“We measure the success of our metal detectors based on the consistent verification of detection sensitivity, as well as equipment uptime,” noted Jim LaRocco, vice president of operations at Great Kitchens. “We are very happy with the reliability of the Safeline metal detectors to operate dependably in our cold environment and to handle our hot water washdown.”

Featuring an advanced coil design for superior detection sensitivity, PowerPhasePLUS metal detectors zero in on all types of metal contamination, including ferrous and non-ferrous tramp metal as well as stainless steel fragments. A Faraday Screen is located between the detector coil and the product to filter out unwanted frequencies, which further improves detection sensitivity while virtually eliminating false rejects.

“I’ve been working in the food industry for 15 years and I’ve used many different metal detectors during that time,” noted Roberto Giuliano, Quality Assurance director at Great Kitchens. “Nothing compares to Safeline metal detectors — especially in a challenging environment like ours. The PowerPhasePLUS is a workhorse.”

At Great Kitchens, the environment varies dramatically — from 45 to 48°F during production shifts to soaring temperatures and high humidity during sanitation shifts. The PowerPhasePLUS metal detectors are designed to handle this extreme temperature fluctuation and the high-temperature, high-pressure washdown itself. Featuring an IP36K-rated control panel, the Safeline detectors exceed NEMA 4X specifications.

“The metal detectors are one of the critical control points in our HACCP plan. To assure the detectors are performing to our high standards, we test each one every 15 minutes to verify sensitivity,” noted LaRocco. “An additional layer of security exists with these detectors because they require an access code that prevents unauthorized adjustments.” Manufacturing pizzas in three different sizes — 12, 14 and 16 inches — during two production shifts a day, Great Kitchens produces up to 50,000 pizzas per day on each of its four lines.

“We are so confident with Safeline, we’ve recommended them to our raw material suppliers to insure we collectively maintain the highest levels of quality and food safety,” concluded LaRocco.