The yogurt producer La Fageda has found success in its 25 year history by hiring a diverse team of people from all backgrounds and abilities. Their own personal recipe has been a mix of solid personal commitment, locally-sourced ingredients, and a clever marketing concept.
The goal: Produce the tastiest yogurt. And you do that by charting your own course, even it it means veering from the production methods used by the market leaders in the food industry. La Fageda is located in the Garrotxa district, and it's one of the region's largest employers. The company has seen regular growth every year, and they've expanded their portfolio to include ice cream, jam, and desserts.
Strict requirements are placed on the filling equipment, which has to function like clockwork. This is where the yogurt is fed into the filling machine. As yogurt and various dessert varieties fill the small feed container, the level is continuously measured. A constant level measurement ensures the filling machine does not come to a standstill. Every hour, 12,000 yogurt cups are filled in the one machine, and another 20,000 in two other machines.
Until recently, there was no continuous level measurement here. They only had capacitive sensors, which only provided operators with high and low point level measurements. The company wanted to optimize the filling process, and an engineering company recommended the VEGAFLEX 81 guided wave radar sensor, which is used in many industries because of its reliability and versatility. VEGAFLEX guided wave radars can output accurate measurements regardless of temperature, pressure, and vacuum.
Inside the filling vessel, the yogurt passes through a funnel and into a container with a small agitator at the bottom, and all of this combined results in a challenging situation for level measurement instrumentation. Only a small amount of the yogurt sticks to the probe of the VEGAFLEX 81, but because of the self-cleaning system inside, this never causes any issues. The small agitator can also lead to inaccurate measurements because it causes foam to form. Fortunately, the VEGAFLEX 81 is immune to the foam, and it can still deliver reliable measuring results, which ensures the filling system runs smoothly.