Turkish-style meat specialist Solmaz Foods never undervalues the importance of food safety. The Canadian-based halal meat processor describes its four Fortress Technology metal detectors as “essential equipment” that shows regulatory food quality control inspectors that they have the right safeguards in place.
To keep pace with growing production volumes, Solmaz Foods deploys several high-performance packaging and inspection machines. Its fourth addition of an in-line Fortress Stealth pipeline metal detector provides even further food safety assurance, while simultaneously reducing labour, processing and product waste costs by an estimated 50 percent.
Specialising in Turkish-style meats, turkey breast, halal pepperoni, deli cuts and fan-favourite the sujuk sausage, Solmaz Foods was founded in 2001 by father-son duo Tahsin and Mehmet Solmaz. From a small downtown butchers shop, the company’s plant has grown to 20,000-sq-ft and now processes 61 kilograms of the finest halal meat monthly, which it supplies to retail outlets and restaurants.
Rapid expansion and ever-increasing sales volumes led to the addition of an in-line Fortress Stealth pipeline metal detector to inspect meat before it is stuffed, cooked, smoked, sliced and eventually packaged. Having the combination of both upstream and end-of-line conveyor metal detectors gives Solmaz a competitive edge, assures Mehmet. Double inspections equal double reassurance that contaminants are not going undetected and undermining the company’s strong food safety values.
President of the company Mehmet Solmaz comments: “Now we have a control where we can identify if a product has any metal pieces or other materials inside earlier in our production. That gives us better control and peace of mind that our products are safe.”
Aside from improved food safety upstream, adding the Stealth pipeline has reduced costs across the board through labour, time savings, and risk reduction, reports Mehmet. “I estimate that we have halved our costs. Our inline detector eliminates a lot of waste because the moment this system detects any metals in the meat, it automatically discharges that part of the batch, and we can still process the rest of it.”
With this robust food safety foundation in place, the halal meat processor describes its metal detectors as essential equipment. The Fortress team not only showed Solmaz processing staff how to operate the equipment, but explained how the machines can best be used in specific detection scenarios during production, added Mehmet. “Fortress has a lot of experience in the food business with many global brands, as well as local players like us. This makes us feel comfortable as we know that they have the experience and experts in place that have faced similar situations that we face in our operation.”
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