Lamb Weston Meijer has acquired four new cutting machines from FAM, the specialist in industrial equipment for cutting.
One of them was the FAM Tridis 240P, which was designed with the frozen fries sector in mind. The Tridis 240P has been tested and approved in cooperation with leading Flemish frozen foods companies, as well as by Lamb Weston / Meijer, which ordered four machines for their production plant at Bergen op Zoom.
The machines are tasked with processing tons of potatoes to produce crinkle-cut chips, both regular and deep crinkle-cut fries. This product is better known to the consumer as ‘Ziggy Fries’: a very crispy chip with a well-structured outside and a smooth texture on the inside. This special cutting shape calls for a machine that cuts the potato perfectly from beginning to end to ensure uniformity along all four sides.
Every year the plant at Bergen op Zoom processes up to 500,000 tonnes of potatoes. These machines therefore handle gigantic quantities of potatoes to produce diced potato, chips and other cut shapes.
According to FAM, for Lamb Weston / Meijer one of the key performance indicators was machine maintenance. The frozen food industry needs robust and reliable machinery that guarantees minimum downtimes. The FAM Tridis 240 stands out with its movable electrical cabinet that ensures easy access to the drive compartment as well as the cartridge system for the removal of shafts and bearings. Besides cutting quality, machine maintenance has to be flawless. The FAM Tridis 240P combines optimal product throughput with a fast transit speed and minimum travel path to offer excellent cutting quality and minimum loss levels.
