Key Technology debuts reversible horizontal conveyor

Key Technology, a member of the Duravant family of operating companies, will introduce its reversible Zephyr conveyor at Pack Expo, booth S-3547.

Zephyr gently moves product with minimal bounce to protect product quality and reduce noise. Now equipped to flow in either direction, the reversible Zephyr maximizes production line versatility while improving sanitation and minimizing maintenance.

The reversible conveyor is ideal for frozen bulk foods including potato products, fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry, as well as dry products like potato chips/crisps, nuts and cereals. It gently slides and conveys product with no segregation or stratification, and reduces product damage and the loss of coatings such as seasoning, batter and certain types of oil. The Zephyr offers up to twice the throughput of other horizontal-motion conveyors, while limiting noise to 75 decibels or less, according to the company.

When integrated with pneumatic controls on the production floor, the reversible Zephyr allows processors to change direction of product flow with either the push of a button or automatically if fully integrated with the line. It can be configured to separate a single product stream to two side-by-side machines or even divert a single stream to two different downstream production lines to produce different products.

Zephyr’s construction helps maximize sanitation, ease cleaning and reduce maintenance. The bed width and length can be tailored for individual customer applications, and Zephyr can be equipped with options including slide gates for scale feed distribution, a discharge to enhance multi-head weighing or a bias to spread product when feeding downstream systems. It can also be configured with a stop-start mode for scale feeding or product distribution. Zephyr also  accommodates varying product flow rates.