Metal detection for dairy production
When product flows through pipes rather than sitting on a belt, the task changes character. The detector goes into the pipe run, it has to survive CIP internally and high pressure externally, and rejection happens with a valve without stopping the flow.
Where the detector typically sits
- After cheese vats and cutting equipment, where knives and machine parts are a genuine source
- Before the packing machine on processed cheese, spreads and dips
- After rework of returned product, where packaging material can travel back into the process
- At ingredient intake, where powder and additives arrive from sacks and big bags
CIP and high-pressure washdown in the same installation
A pipeline detector is cleaned two ways at once: internally with CIP fluids at temperature, externally with washdown water. The construction has to handle both — and the detector typically sits low in the plant where water collects.
Our pipeline series is rated IP68 and IP69K and constructed to operate submerged. The coupling is hygienic and designed for food plant.
Note the product effect as well: salted sauces, dressings and processed cheese conduct. Sensitivity in a pipe installation depends both on pipe diameter and on the product's conductivity, and therefore has to be established by test rather than taken from a datasheet.
Not sure what can be detected in your specific product? Send us a sample. You get a written test report with false reject rate and probability of detection — free and normally within a week.
What we typically supply
Liquid and pumped product
Pipeline detector with hygienic coupling and automatic reject valve.
Packed cheese and portions
Complete unit with conveyor and reject after packing.
Milk powder and ingredients
Free-fall detector in the drop pipe above the bagging machine or at intake.
Dry lines in a wet plant
Many dairies and sauce plants also run dry lines: milk powder, whey, stabilisers and spice blends. There the free-fall detector is the answer — fitted into the drop pipe above the bagging machine or at intake weighing.
It detects ferrous, non-ferrous and stainless steel in the same passage, which matters because the fragments a powder line actually produces — sieve wire, mill wear, screw-flight debris — are usually stainless.