We have all gone grocery shopping at one point or another and go through the bread aisle. It seems there are more choices for bread these days than there is fish in the sea! Many of those choices are of what I’ll term the “healthier” variety touting such names as “whole wheat”, “multi-grain”, “all natural” and a host of other terms that invoke the thought of the image below where you have a loaf of oven-fresh bread, packed to the hilt with various grains, seeds, berries and other “good stuff”.
So, you can see all of this stuff in and on the loaf of bread / bun. But how does a commercial bakery get this stuff onto the finished loaf / bun? The bulk seed product usually comes in a barrel much as shown below.
The way it is done is by conveying from the bulk barrel up into the hopper of a machine that spreads the seed out over the width of the conveyor. The tool used to get the seed up to the hopper is our Line Vac product. We have a variety of sizes from 3/8″ hose size all the way up to 5″ hose size. We also manufacture them in a variety of materials including Aluminum, 303 stainless, 316 stainless and tool steel. In this case the 316 stainless model made to fit 1-1/4″ hose model 6062-316 worked quite well for the customer.
The big advantages for the customer by going with the Line Vac solution were:
1. Keep production personnel safely on the ground and off of ladders to fill the hopper which was some 8 ft. in the air.
2. Eliminate wasted product being spilled from scoops used to fill the hopper while operator climbs ladder.
3. Easy management of the on/off function of the Line Vac allowed for more productive use of operator’s time while managing the process. The customer started by using a simple ball valve to turn the Line Vac on and off. However, they could also use one of our Electronic Flow Controllers with infrared sensor based level control in the hopper.
The result; a consistent product with evenly applied seed and done with minimal effort.
OK, I’m hungry now. Think I’m going go have two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.
Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com