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Meat snack company beefs up production with new metal detectors

U.K.’s Meatsnacks Group installs three metal detectors for its jerky and biltong packs that are capable of filtering out signals generated by iron filings from each pack’s scavenger oxygen absorber.

To cope with the heightened demand for its meat snack products, the company recently invested in three metal detectors.
To cope with the heightened demand for its meat snack products, the company recently invested in three metal detectors.

The meat snack segment, valued at $2.8 billion in the U.S. in 2017, has seen sales grow consistently year on year by 7%. It’s a similar picture in Europe, with analysts at Ireland-based Research and Markets predicting sales of meat snacks in Europe could reach US$4.59 billion by 2025. “The demand for meat snacks in Europe is expected to increase rapidly as the market is still in its nascent stage,” the company notes.

For Meatsnacks Group, which commands 78% of the local U.K. market share, the rising popularity of its premium low-fat, air-dried cooked and smoked meat snacks is resulting in year-on-year double-digit growth. The company’s brands include Wild West Jerky, Bundu, Texas Joe’s, and Cruga brands. In the U.K. and Ireland, the company manufactures and distributes jerky products under the Men’s Health brand in partnership with the U.S.-based consumer magazine of the same name. It also makes private-label jerky products under contract for a number of U.K. grocery retailers.

To cope with the heightened demand for its products of late, the company recently invested in three Phantom metal detectors from Fortress Technology. Meatsnacks Group chose the supplier as it was the only food inspection provider to offer a system that could filter out the signal generated by iron filings from each packet’s scavenger oxygen absorber.

Extending shelf life with scavenger absorbers

Prior to installing the three conveyor-style Fortress metal detectors, the BRC-accredited food producer says their Milton Keynes operation increasingly relied on contractors to hand-pack and seal packets of biltong, which proved labor intensive. “Now we have three fully automated lines that checkweigh, fill packs, insert the scavenger, and inspect for metal contaminants,” reports David Stephenson, Engineering Manager at the Meatsnacks Group, Milton Keynes production site. “It has given us increased capacity, with our three lines now running non-stop 11 hours a day, six days a week.”

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