Food producer ensures sanitary conditions for new packaging line

Every day, thousands of pounds of mushrooms are picked and packaged from Monterey Mushroom’s Loudon, Tenn., facility and delivered throughout the southeastern United States. A recent renovation included a new packaging line using sanitary conveyor to handle product before and after it is packaged. With a focus on ease of maintenance, the system now achieves optimal uptime through 16 hours per day of continuous use.

The company grows all of its mushrooms—including white, portabella, organic and a variety of specialty mushrooms—indoors in one of 47 growing rooms. These rooms, measuring about 90 feet long by 30 feet wide, are filled with six levels of growing trays. The company controls all aspects of production, beginning with the creation of compost as a food source for the mushrooms. After the compost is placed in trays, pasteurized and cooled to room temperature, spores are planted and grow in 13 days, during which time the environment must be carefully controlled. Mushrooms are then picked according to size and maturity and hand-sorted into baskets. The entire process takes about seven to eight weeks from compost to picking mushrooms.

The facility renovation began two years ago with plans to add new dry storage space, a new cooler, additional docks and redesigned packaging lines for improved efficiencies. As part of the new packaging lines, the company installed a mix of nearly 30 different sanitary conveyors (Dorner Manufacturing, dornerconveyors.com).

The conveyors are part of a four-lane packaging line, each stretching about 50 feet in length. Several weight-checking stations are positioned alongside the conveyors to allow employees to pack and weigh containers of mushrooms. Since the application called for the conveyors to be used both before and after mushrooms are wrapped and packaged, different levels of sanitary requirements were needed in the conveyor system. On the pre-packaged side, conveyors are required to be fully washed down and sanitized daily; conveyors used for moving wrapped mushrooms require a less stringent level of sanitation that can be accomplished through wipe downs and other techniques.

David Redd, engineering manager for Monterey Mushrooms, evaluated conveyor platforms designed for food industries, and looked for a solution that could meet various federal and state regulations for safe and effective operation.

“We needed a conveyor platform we could quickly, easily and thoroughly clean and sterilize,” Redd says. “With the highest sanitation level and the fastest cleaning times, we have more time for production and will achieve a quicker return on investment.”

Redd says the stainless steel conveyors increase throughput and reduce product loss. Monterey picks and packs mushrooms sometimes as long as 16 hours a day. When packing is finished for the day, a sanitation crew cleans and sterilizes every conveyor, along with the rest of the facility. The conveyors were fitted with belt lifters and tip-up noses that allow easy access to all areas that need cleaning. The conveyor platforms can be completely disassembled by one person in less than 90 seconds, and the entire cleaning process takes just a few minutes.