Cheese

Infeed & Conveying Equipment with Sanitary Design for Cheese Manufacturers

Benchmark provides high-quality automatic infeed and conveying equipment for cheese product manufacturers, designed to meet stringent 3A sanitation and food safety standards. We offer efficient and reliable systems for accurate feeding at high-speeds.

From unpackaged blocks of cheese to cheese stick products, Benchmark understands the importance of gentle handling of your delicate products. Our InFlight FT wrapper infeed system accepts a single lane of randomly spaced product and automatically loads it directly onto the film on the wrapper infeed, without backlogging the product. The floating belt to belt transfer on this machine stages sticky items without product to product contact, before timing the product in registration with the film. The InFlight FT™ Loader is offered in single-lane and dual-lane models, and is designed with automatic start, stop and speed controls to match the wrapper speed to your product flow. With Benchmark’s InFlight FT™ Loader, cheese manufacturers have a highly-efficient solution to achieve high-performance cheese packaging.

Other Benchmark applications viable for the cheese industry include conveyance, merging and diverging. These devices can be designed using servo or pneumatic controls based on production rates. Depending on the number of lanes and speed, Benchmark’s Merger consists of a number of servo-driven polyurethane timing belt conveyors, and a wider merging belt conveyor that is equipped with adjustable static plows or powered side belts to accommodate your specific needs.

Our belt conveyors can accommodate a wide array of other applications for handling your unpackaged cheese products including cheese sticks, cheese snacks, and more. Benchmark also offers belt and mat top chain conveyors for handling your packaged cheese products. The mat top chain conveyor is a great option for handling packaged cheese products. These conveyors offer flexibility and easy integration into your current production line.

Case Study – Blocks of Cheese

A leading cheese manufacturer consulted with Benchmark in search of a solution to automatically feed various sized blocks of cheese directly onto the registered film of a horizontal wrapper to prepare the product for the wrapping process. The manufacturer’s goal was to increase packaging speeds up to 180 ppm.

Benchmark’s solution was its durable InFlight FT™ Loader with the capability to precisely feed and position the sticky product directly onto the film of the horizontal wrapper. Constructed of rigid stainless steel and designed for wash-down, the InFlight FT Loader includes a floating belt to belt transfer for each lane to create evenly-spaced, non-contact product flow from the customer’s random presentation. It also includes a series of shorter correction belts which time and deliver the cheese product in registration onto the wrapper film. The infeed system also included customized, operator-friendly controls to perform a variety of valuable functions, and help minimize changeovers and downtime.

View our InFlight FT™ Loader in action

This solution provided the client with accurate cheese product placement directly onto the registered film of the horizontal wrapper while automatically starting, stopping and controlling the wrapper speed to match product flow. The automated speed controls eliminated empty packages from the wrapper – reducing film waste and delivering production efficiencies.