Regulations give robots edge in food industry

Due to reg­u­la­tions passed in 2011, mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ics now have the edge in the food and bev­er­age indus­try.

In Jan­u­ary 2011, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma signed The Food Safe­ty Mod­ern­iza­tion Act. This act gave the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion pow­er to reg­u­late how food is grown, har­vest­ed and processed. This law was pro­posed fol­low­ing sev­er­al out­breaks of food-relat­ed ill­ness and taint­ed food dur­ing the 2000s.

Since man­u­al appli­ca­tions of food han­dling have a high­er rate of error and chance of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, mate­r­i­al han­dling robots are being brought in so facil­i­ties can hold up to the new stan­dards and regulations.

Not only do robots pro­mote a more ster­il­ized envi­ron­ment, they also take more pre­cise counts dur­ing pro­duc­tion, which leads to the abil­i­ty to track a pack­age that might be taint­ed back to its origins.

Food mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ic sys­tems have a pro­tec­tion rat­ing of IP 67, mean­ing that they are not only coat­ed to with­stand rust­ing and growth of bac­te­ria, but they are also dust-proof. These robots are ver­sa­tile enough to per­form sev­er­al dif­fer­ent mate­r­i­al han­dling appli­ca­tions, includ­ing pick and place and pack­ag­ing.

Along with stand­ing up to reg­u­la­tions, food mate­r­i­al han­dling robots speed up pro­duc­tion. Some robots can pick 220 food items per minute. The food mate­r­i­al han­dling sys­tems also raise safe­ty lev­els by remov­ing human work­ers from tax­ing, tedious and some­times injury-induc­ing jobs.

There are sev­er­al food-grade approved robots avail­able through Robots​.com, an inte­gra­tor of robot­ics from Fanuc, KUKA, ABB, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and Motoman.

If you are ready to start automat­ing your food and bev­er­age han­dling process­es, con­tact the Robots​.com sales depart­ment at 877−762−6881 to begin design­ing your food mate­r­i­al han­dling robot system.