Fortress Technology has launched yet another food safety World First – a metal detector that inspects low-profile, high-value foods vertically and horizontally concurrently to achieve the highest sensitivity on the planet.

The Interceptor DF (Divergent Field) is a result of the company’s longstanding expertise in metal detection and its more recent development of the two channel, two frequency Interceptor range. “The ability to choose the direction of the inspection field is itself groundbreaking,” says Fortress President Steve Gidman. Performance wise, nothing else on the market comes close to the Interceptor DF when looking for thin, non-spherical metal contaminants in products, claims the company.

Believed to be the first ever multi-orientation, multi-scan food metal detector, the Interceptor DF is especially sensitive to very thin metal contaminant flakes and foils that are difficult to detect on low profile foods, including chocolate, confectionery, nutrition bars, cookies and biscuits. The Interceptor DF can also be used to inspect small thin packages of conductive products like cheese and deli meats with a high value and high market image, for example burgers.

Rather than scanning a select number of frequencies, the conveyor-style metal detector inspects raw and packaged products using multiple field directions. To increase food safety, the Interceptor DF system addresses several previous limitations - notably orientation, size, geometry and position of metals. It’s especially reliable at detecting very thin flakes and foils that could be introduced to premium foods in the mixing, rolling, scoring, molding or baking processes.

Innovation in action
Different to other multi-scan metal detectors on the market, the unique Fortress system uses multiple coil sets to instantaneously drive the electromagnetic fields in different directions. Rather than missing a metal contaminant because it hasn’t aligned with a specific field, the Interceptor DF looks for signals over a broad spectrum, from multiple angles.

The stronger disturbance from one field compensates for the weaker signal from another. This increases the probability of identifying and rejecting products containing non-spherical metals by over 100%, including difficult to spot flat metal flakes. By taking control of something that’s inherently difficult to control - contaminant orientation - Fortress is once again proving itself to be a leader in the food safety inspection market.

To increase supply chain transparency and product traceability, Contact Reporter software, included as  standard, produces a full log of events. These electronic records can be viewed, filtered and exported, and can be used to supplement or replace manual documentation.

For fast set up and ease of use, the Interceptor DF learns and recalls the signature of any given product with just one pass. Halo automatic testing can be added to reduce the risk of human error when manually testing the performance of the detection system.

Several North American food factories are currently trialing the new system, which is already generating a lot of positive feedback. The next industry demonstrations of the Interceptor DF will be at PACKEX Toronto, June 4-6, Booth 1153, International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE), Sept. 8-11, Booth C-7109, and Pack Expo Las Vegas, Sept. 23-25, Booth C-1951.

For more information visit www.fortresstechnology.com.