Close

    Get in touch

      Get in touch

      Posted by Marie Ristic on in Case Studies

      X-Ray Inspection Case Study: Boulangerie St-Donat

      Canadian food manufacturer Boulangerie St-Donat significantly improved their food quality assurance & traceability with the Eagle Pack 320 Pro.

      Founded in 1924, Boulangerie St-Donat’s traditional baked goods are a Canadian favourite, with their range of authentic pies, cakes and pastries on the shelves in most major supermarkets across Quebec and the rest of the country.

      The historic Quebecois bakery produces approximately 12,000 pies and 3,000 cakes a day, five days a week. Each baked product is packaged in an aluminium tray and distributed to local grocery stores and major national chain stores for sale.

      With such a high volume and broad distribution of their food products, Boulangerie St-Donat needed to ensure that their food inspection and quality assurance systems were up to the high standards required not just by national retailers and regulators, but also to which they held for themselves.

      “Quality and food security are our main concerns in doing business; that’s why we need reliable product inspection equipment and the assurance of good service from our equipment suppliers.”

      Guillaume St-Amour, President Boulangerie St-Donat

      The Challenge

      Their current Quality Assurance processes for foreign body detection and food traceability weren’t keeping up with the growing food manufacturer’s production volume, distributors’ requirements, the range of possible food contaminants or even the restraints of their packaging.

      The Boulangerie was in need of reliable product inspection equipment that could check for a variety of foreign objects in their metalised packaging – the aluminium trays.

      “We were using a metal detector to inspect some problematic products, but that was all and we were keen to find a product inspection solution capable of detecting a wider range of contaminants in cakes and pies in aluminium trays.”

      Guillaume St-Amour, President Boulangerie St-Donat

      All in all, Boulangerie St-Donat needed a product inspection system that could:

      • Handle a high-volume of products at a fast rate, to keep up with their daily 15,000 pies and cakes.
      • Detect a wide range of contaminants through the aluminium foil packaging.
      • Weigh each product to detect under and overweight items.
      • Automatically reject contaminated products and record data about the reason for rejection.

      The Solution

      After close consulting with two product inspection solutions providers, Boulangerie St-Donat chose to implement the Eagle PI Pack 320 PRO into their production line to strengthen their contamination detection capabilities and improve food traceability.

      Designed specifically to inspect high-speed lines of packaged food products, the bakery installed the Eagle Pack 320 PRO from Eagle X-Ray Inspection Systems at the end of their production line. The system is able to inspect and weigh 20 pies per minute.

      The X-Ray technology of the Eagle Pack 320 PRO gives it the ability to see straight through aluminium and foil packaging to detect and reject a wide range of foreign contaminants of all shapes and sizes including glass shards, metal fragments, mineral stone, calcified bone and even some plastic and rubber components.

      In addition, using Eagle’s Traceserver data collection software has helped Boulangerie St-Donat identify more common contaminants and develop effective strategies to reduce them.

      By integrating the Eagle Pack 320 Pro in their production process, the food manufacturer has seen significant improvements in their quality assurance, ensuring fewer contaminated products ever make it to the shelves.

      “We’ve dramatically increased the number of products that were captured with a contaminant before they were sent to market.”

      Guillaume St-Amour, President Boulangerie St-Donat

      Find out how you can strengthen your contaminant detection capabilities to improve the quality and safety of your food products while reducing wastage from rejection with the Eagle Pack 320 PRO X-Ray inspection system. Contact us to learn more about the other bakery processing equipment available.

      You might also like: