Frozen vegetable processor Twin City Foods recently partnered with Key Technology to install two VERYX optical sorters at the end of its processing lines for peas and corn. 

Founded in the 1940s, Twin City Foods processes hundreds of millions of pounds of product annually. The company’s frozen peas, corn, carrots and green beans are sold around the world to foodservice customers and in private-label retail packs. 

“Our customers are very discerning,” says Dank Munko, vice president of operations at Twin City Foods. “While other frozen vegetable processors might be limited to offering only certain product grades, we pride ourselves on having the flexibility to accommodate any grade our customers ask for. Reliably achieving more unique grades requires sophisticated sorting, so we decided it was time to update our flagship facility in Pasco, Wash. with the latest technology. We wanted optical sorters that would maximize our food safety and ensure exact product quality specifications, while also increasing yield, achieving high throughputs and simplifying our operations.”

Twin City Foods selected two VERYX B210 belt-fed sorters, the highest capacity model in the VERYX family, which are each capable of processing up to 40,000 lbs. of frozen vegetables per hour. Both sorters are equipped with top-mounted off-axis cameras and laser sensors, as well as Key’s Pixel Fusion detection module to achieve Twin City Foods’ rigorous food safety and product quality objectives.

Recognizing the color, size, shape and structural property of every object, these VERYX sorters find and remove all types of foreign materials, including metal, plastic, insects and extraneous vegetative matter (EVM), as well as a variety of defects such as off-color products and pulled corn kernels.

“EVM is an especially big concern when processing peas and corn since stems, pods and husks can come in from the field during harvesting,” says Raul Martinez, division manager at Twin City Foods’ Pasco facility. “We have many steps to ensure EVM is removed during processing, and our VERYX sorters are a fantastic final quality check before packaging. We have recipes saved in each sorter’s memory to accommodate different varieties of corn and peas, different product grades and different growing conditions, which can affect taste, texture, the EVM and more. We’re easily able to tailor our VERYX programming to remove exactly what we need to, even when there are significant changes in incoming product.”

To further maximize equipment uptime and sorting performance, Twin City Foods’ VERYX systems are equipped with RemoteMD, which enables a two-way remote session between the sorter and a Key service technician to simplify diagnostics and speed the resolution of any issues.