Mettler-Toledo: X-ray inspection secures quality of baked goods

To comply with all relevant food safety standards throughout production, the German bakery Kuchenmeister ensures quality control with X-ray inspection systems from Mettler-Toledo Safeline.

Kuchenmeister GmbH has been producing high-qual­ity pastry and confection-ery specialties for more than 130 years. Today, the company with around 1,000 employees is among the largest medium-sized bakeries in Germany and a market leader for ready-made cakes. “Besides strong customer orientation, we place high demands on the quality and taste of our products,” says Markus Junkmann, production manager at Kuchenmeister.
In order to meet national and international food safety standards such as HACCP, IFS, and GMP, Kuchenmeister relies on the X3310 X-ray inspection system from Mettler-Toledo Safeline for quality control. The compact system is designed to inspect small and medium-sized packaged products. At the Kuchenmeister plant in Mettingen, the X3310 examines small packaged baked pastry cases for foreign body contamination by metal, glass, plastic or high-density rubber as part of final inspection before delivery.
The X-ray inspection system operates at a rate of 35 to 40 packages per minute. If a foreign body is detected, a pusher automatically removes the contaminated package from the production line, preventing it from being further processed. “Measurement results and quality data are constantly recorded and available to quality management for further evaluation and monitoring of production processes,” notes Markus Junkmann.
To make absolutely certain that their X-ray inspection system is in thorough working order, Kuchenmeister established a strict validation process that checks system performance every hour using various test objects. The X3310 then stores these test results for periodic inspection and is configured to remind operators of upcoming tests with an audible and visual signal.
Besides the X3310 system for end product inspection, Kuchenmeister also uses X-ray inspection systems from Mettler-Toledo Safeline for its incoming goods. “Our suppliers check raisins for foreign bodies such as stones,” reports Thomas Engel, quality manager at Kuchenmeister. “Nevertheless, we use X-ray inspection technology from Mettler-Toledo Safeline to inspect incoming goods to re-examine our purchased raw materials and guarantee that no foreign bodies enter our production. Thanks to the use of state-of-the-art X-ray inspection technology, we can reliably ensure that our products do not contain any foreign objects.” The company also uses Safeline metal detectors and dynamic control scales from Mettler-Toledo Garvens at its production facilities.