New Vibratory Shakers

La Huer­ta, proces­sors of frozen fruits and veg­eta­bles, added their third pro­duc­tion line in 2016 and their fifth auto­mat­ed pack­ag­ing line in Sep­tem­ber 2018. Look­ing for world-class per­for­mance, includ­ing supe­ri­or san­i­ta­tion and rugged reli­a­bil­i­ty, they’ve turned to Key Tech­nol­o­gy many times along the way. Now, Key’s Iso-Flo vibra­to­ry shak­ers can be found on every pro­cess­ing and pack­ag­ing line at La Huerta.

“Every year, the demand for food safe­ty gets stricter, with high­er stan­dards for micro­bi­ol­o­gy and san­i­ta­tion and more requests for audits. In this envi­ron­ment, our relent­less focus on qual­i­ty sets us apart,” said Car­los Gutier­rez, Plant Man­ag­er at La Huer­ta. “Our equip­ment from Key helps us achieve our high prod­uct qual­i­ty objec­tives at the same time it increas­es our effi­cien­cies by max­i­miz­ing uptime and reduc­ing labor.”

La Huer­ta installed Key’s Veg-Mix in 2006, fol­lowed by an Iso-Flo dewa­ter­ing shak­er and an Iso-Flo fines removal shak­er the next year. Since then, they’ve installed two inte­grat­ed pack­ag­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems that each fea­ture sev­er­al Iso-Flo Smooth-Cycle™ scale-feed con­vey­ors with pneu­mat­ic slide gates and an Iso-Flo col­lec­tion shak­er. They added anoth­er dewa­ter­ing shak­er in 2016 and a bar-style size grad­er, also based on Key’s ver­sa­tile Iso-Flo design, in 2018.

“The qual­i­ty of Key’s equip­ment is far bet­ter than any com­pet­i­tive solu­tion that we’ve used. As our oth­er shak­ers reach the end of their life, we plan to replace them with Iso-Flo,” not­ed Luis Pica­zo, Project and Main­te­nance Man­ag­er at La Huer­ta. “Key cus­tomizes each of these shak­ers for our process­es so they work per­fect­ly, and they’re designed to be easy to clean and hygien­ic. The sup­port we’ve received from Key has also been great. When­ev­er we have ques­tions or need any­thing, they’re very responsive.”

Iso-Flo shak­ers have always been rec­og­nized for san­i­ta­tion and reli­a­bil­i­ty, and Key is con­tin­u­ous­ly work­ing to improve their designs with new fea­tures that exceed ris­ing food safe­ty stan­dards. In addi­tion to stain­less steel con­struc­tion, smooth beds and durable Stron­gArm spring arms that have helped define Key’s vibra­to­ry shak­ers over the years, La Huerta’s new­er Iso-Flo shak­ers also fea­ture 100 per­cent con­tin­u­ous welds, no-pinch slide gates, stain­less steel motors, self-drain­ing sur­faces and the elim­i­na­tion of lam­i­na­tions, which can trap bac­te­ria. Every ele­ment of every Key sys­tem is designed for per­for­mance and sanitation.

Fea­tur­ing inde­pen­dent frame-mount­ed dri­ves and spring arm assem­blies, Iso-Flo shak­ers dis­trib­ute ener­gy equal­ly to all parts of the shak­er bed in a con­trolled nat­ur­al-fre­quen­cy oper­a­tion. This oper­at­ing prin­ci­ple min­i­mizes the vibra­tion that is trans­ferred to struc­tur­al sup­port and the floor, which cuts the cost of instal­la­tion, reduces ener­gy use and offers qui­et oper­a­tion. Key’s con­toured Stron­gArm spring arms, made with pro­pri­ety com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al, offer an oper­a­tional life that is up to twice the life of tra­di­tion­al, straight spring arms. The stain­less steel Iso-Dri­ve adds to Iso-Flo’s extreme depend­abil­i­ty, reduc­ing main­te­nance and improv­ing per­for­mance and uptime.

“La Huer­ta has been in the ‘healthy food busi­ness’ since we were found­ed by Jose Artea­ga Cam­pos in 1957. Today, under the lead­er­ship of his son, Jose Artea­ga Niep­mann, we remain true to our orig­i­nal prin­ci­ples of respect, integri­ty, respon­si­bil­i­ty and team­work while we evolve,” said Katrin Derntl, Inter­na­tion­al Sales Man­ag­er at La Huer­ta. “After grow­ing our sales vol­ume on aver­age 10 per­cent annu­al­ly over the last five years, we’re pro­duc­ing more than 60,000 met­ric tons of fin­ished prod­uct a year and export­ing more than 40 per­cent to 11 coun­tries, includ­ing the U.S., Cana­da and Japan, where cus­tomers have the high­est qual­i­ty stan­dards. Our prod­ucts go to mar­ket under our own brand and under pri­vate label cus­tomers’ brand names, as well. In Mex­i­co, the La Huer­ta brand is by far the mar­ket leader in the frozen veg­etable cat­e­go­ry with over 70% of mar­ket share in retail.”

La Huer­ta installed Key’s Veg-Mix on their pack­ag­ing lines to pro­duce bags of mixed fruits or veg­eta­bles. This sys­tem receives each prod­uct in a sep­a­rate infeed hop­per, then de-clus­ters, meters, mix­es and con­veys the mixed prod­uct to pack­ag­ing. The hop­per design min­i­mizes prod­uct ‘stick­ing’ to elim­i­nate the buildup of thawed prod­uct. A long-span frame and inte­grat­ed Iso-Flo col­lec­tion con­vey­ors allow for min­i­mal sup­ports to the floor, which makes the sys­tem easy to install and easy to clean. The mas­ter over­ride adjusts total line flow while main­tain­ing pre­set mix ratios. Inde­pen­dent, ‘on-the-fly’ adjust­ment of the Clus­ter Break­er and Vari-Feed­er enable quick, reli­able change of prod­uct mix and meter­ing. “Our Veg-Mix ensures the right amount of each prod­uct in the mix so we’re sure to stay with­in spec­i­fi­ca­tions,” explained Picazo.

The two Iso-Flo pack­ag­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion lines at La Huer­ta fea­ture sev­er­al Iso-Flo Smooth-Cycle shak­ers with no-pinch slid­ing gates. One dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem feeds prod­uct to three mul­ti-head weighers that each feed a VFFS machine. The oth­er feeds semi-auto­mat­ed pack­ag­ing sta­tions. Designed specif­i­cal­ly for feed­ing appli­ca­tions, Smooth Cycle con­vey­ors include con­trols that man­age the flow of the prod­uct on the shak­er, speed­ing up and slow­ing down as need­ed, to elim­i­nate the mechan­i­cal stop/start tran­sients com­mon in these applications.