Industry
Dairy Industry
Application
250g & 500g Aluminum Foil Wrapped Butter Blocks
Equipment
Fanchi-tech Combined Ferrous Metal Detector & Dynamic Checkweigher
In early 2025, a leading dairy manufacturer in Northern Europe contacted Shanghai Fanchi-tech Machinery Co., Ltd. to upgrade the final inspection stage of its butter production line.
The customer produces more than 42 million butter blocks annually, supplying supermarket private labels and well-known dairy brands across Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavia.
Their primary products include:
All products are wrapped in aluminum foil before entering the secondary packaging line.
The production line operates continuously for 20 hours per day, with an average throughput of 180–220 butter blocks per minute.
Before contacting Fanchi-tech, the customer used two separate inspection systems.
Production Flow:
Butter Forming
↓
Foil Wrapping
↓
Coding
↓
Ferrous Metal Detector
↓
Dynamic Checkweigher
↓
Manual Inspection
↓
Cartoning
↓
Palletizing
Although functional, this layout created several operational challenges.
The original inspection area required over 4.8 meters of conveyor length.
As production capacity increased, the customer planned to install another packaging line but lacked sufficient floor space.
Two independent inspection machines meant:
The engineering department estimated that annual maintenance costs exceeded €12,000.
Butter is a high-value dairy product.
To avoid underweight packages, operators intentionally overfilled each butter block by approximately 3–5 grams.
For an annual production volume of over 42 million units, this resulted in a significant amount of unnecessary product giveaway and increased raw material costs.
Major supermarket chains requested:
The customer needed an integrated inspection system capable of meeting these requirements.
Unlike plastic packaging, aluminum foil generates a strong electromagnetic signal.
A conventional balanced-coil metal detector cannot reliably distinguish between the packaging material and metallic contaminants.
For this reason, the customer required a dedicated Ferrous Metal Detector, specifically designed for aluminum foil wrapped dairy products.
This technology focuses on detecting ferrous contamination, which represents one of the most common metal hazards originating from worn processing equipment, damaged bearings, broken blades, screws, or machine components.
After reviewing the customer’s production layout, product dimensions, packaging material, conveyor speed, and inspection requirements, Fanchi-tech recommended an integrated inspection solution.
The system combines:
within one compact machine.
Compared with the customer’s previous layout, the integrated design reduced inspection line length by approximately 35%.
Each foil-wrapped butter block passes through the ferrous metal detector immediately after the wrapping process.
The detector identifies contamination such as:
If contamination is detected, the product is automatically diverted into the reject bin without interrupting production.
Immediately after metal detection, the butter block enters the high-precision checkweigher.
Each package is weighed individually.
Inspection limits are configured for each product recipe.
For example:
250 g Butter
Acceptable Range:
249.5 g – 250.8 g
500 g Butter
Acceptable Range:
499.3 g – 501.0 g
Products outside tolerance are rejected automatically.
Because the factory produces multiple butter formats every day, rapid product changeover is essential.
Operators simply select the required recipe on the touchscreen.
The system automatically loads:
Recipe changeover requires less than 30 seconds.
After three months of operation, the customer evaluated the performance of the new system.
Key improvements included:
The customer also reported smoother line operation due to the integration of metal detection and weight inspection into a single synchronized system.
For aluminum foil wrapped dairy products, manufacturers require more than basic metal detection. They need a complete inline quality assurance solution that combines contamination inspection, weight verification, automatic rejection, and production data management.
Fanchi-tech’s integrated Ferrous Metal Detector & Checkweigher helps dairy producers reduce equipment footprint, improve operational efficiency, and strengthen food safety compliance—all while maintaining high-speed production.
Shanghai Fanchi-tech Machinery Co., Ltd.
Contact:** Kerry
Email: kerry@fanchitech.net
Mobile / WhatsApp: +86 13917555254
Website: www.fanchitech.net
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@fanchitech3323?si=gyh-f9JCbjkJ3tEu