Food / Pet Food Processing Equipment Overview: Sanitary Feeders, Pneumatic Conveying and Automated Systems

K-Tron is a global leader in the gravimetric and volumetric feeder market, producing feeders, pneumatic conveying equipment and related controls for the food and pet food processing industries. Within the food industry, K-Tron has served numerous applications including tortillas, bread and cake mixes, pasta, snack food, cereal, candy, cookies and crackers, ice cream, pet food and more.

Food Processing Material Handling Automation Video: From Railcar to End Product Extrusion

If your browser doesn't support Flash video, you can view our food processing video in QuickTime by clicking this link: Food Processing Material Handling Animation (90 Mb, Requires QuickTime. You can download QuickTime here).

This video animation visualizes many of the ways in which K-Tron can provide food processing automation solutions for food manufacturing operations. In this fly through you'll travel from raw ingredient delivery, to weighing and batching of food ingredients, to end-product feeding and conveying for mixing and extrusion.

In order of appearance, you'll see the following processes:

Rail and truck unloading
Pneumatic conveying to silo
Addition of major ingredients into the process (batch weigh system)
Gain-in-weight batching (GIW)
Loss-in-weight batching (LIW)
Minor ingredient addition
Batching of major and minor premixes
Continuous mixing (LIW feeding and dense phase vacuum conveying)
Dense phase vacuum conveying
Extrusion via loss-in-weight powder and liquid feeding

Download Brochure:
Innovative Feeding & Material Handling Solutions for Food & Pet Food Processing

Smart Weigh Belt Feeders (SWB)

K-Tron's stainless steel Smart Weigh Belt (SWB) feeder serves many food applications and is the first weigh belt feeder to offer the continuous online auto tare function, enabled by a second weigh bridge. Weigh belt feeders offer gravimetric feeding at higher feed rates in areas where low headroom is a problem.

The Smart Weigh Belt (SWB) feeder is available in open and closed frame versions and in 300 mm and 600 mm belt widths, enabling feed rates up to 40,000 kg/hour (88,000 lb/hour). K-Tron has earned industry recognition for its proprietary digital weighing technology. Using the K-Tron Smart Force Transducer (SFT) weighing technology in combination with the K-Tron Smart Connex™ feeder control platform, K-Tron Soder feeders have demonstrated excellent performance, accuracy and return on investment in demanding food industry applications.

Aerolock Rotary Valves: K-Tron offers Aerolock rotary valves for many industries including Milling and Bakery applications.

Bag Dump Stations and Batch Weigh Receivers: Part of K-Tron's family of bins and hoppers designed to ensure a clean and sanitary environment for Food Processing applications.

Bin Vents and Filtration: K-Tron offers several ways to control dust for sanitary applications. Click here to find out what we offer.

Aeropass Valve: Ideally suited for batching applications.

Central Powder Receivers: K-Tron Premier P-Series (Sanitary)

Maximum batch conveying rates: Rates dependent on specific application. Continuous conveying rates are higher. Units meet strict sanitary requirements of the food and pharmaceutical industry.

Model Typical Products Typical Application Maximum Conveying rate

kg/hr lb/hr

P10 filtered
powder/fragile products Food, Pharma 600 1,300

P30 filtered
powder/fragile products Food, Pharma 1,800 4,000

P100 filtered
powder/fragile products Food, Pharma 4,000 8,800

How Vacuum Conveying Works

Gain-in-Weight Batching: Custom Engineered Batching Solutions
K-Tron Gain-in-Weight Batching Stations are the preferred choice for flexible and economical batch preparation in applications involving up to 8 components and 100 recipe lines. Each component is sequentially and independently metered to a weigh collection hopper from which the completed batch is dischaged. Any of K-Tron's wide range of volumetric metering devices may be employed as demanded by ingredient handling characteristics.

Download PDF - GIW Batching

Systems Engineering

For more than 40 years, K-Tron has been providing smart solutions to the problems of material handling and process control. As the world's leading feeder company, K-Tron is able to focus on what many engineers call the hardest part of the process—the art and science of getting material into the process. When you require quality, consistency and control in your process look to K-Tron for single source systems engineering.

Can a More Accurate Feeder Save Money on Material Costs? Absolutely!

Click Here to find out how

Download K-Tron's FeedSmart™ Recipe Optimizer

With K-Tron's FeedSmart you can quickly compute the lowest possible recipe cost for every blend, formulation or compound you process, and calculate additional savings with improved feeder accuracy. View a short presentation about FeedSmart.

Register Now! Go to the FREE FeedSmart Download Page