PULLMAN, April 29, 2019 — METER Group, Inc., creators of AQUALAB water activity meters and SKALA enterprise software solutions, today announced the release of a Moisture Optimization module for pet food manufacturers. The new module features dashboards that allow customers to monitor and control their process in real time.
“The lower water activity limit is something very few people think about. It’s amazing when you realize that if you don’t have a tight lower barrier, you’re leaching profits out the bottom and down the drain,” says Takuya Ohki, VP of METER Food. “Controlling the lower limit impacts both quality and profit.”
At PetFood Forum, Ohki says he will be showing how customers have used SKALA with the new AQUALAB AQ2 smart water activity meter and edge nodes and adapters to tighten up that lower limit. The result: increased yield, decreased rework, and significant boost to the bottom line.
“Before monitoring their lower water activity boundary, one of our customers was producing to an average of 0.794 aw, and over half—59%—of the product coming off the line was outside ideal spec,” says Ohki. “They decided to optimize their moisture margin, tightening up their moisture spec and improving their process control. Over a six-month period, they increased their average water activity to 0.8018 and brought out-of-spec products down to 7.9% total production. This added $546,000 to the bottom line by increasing yield and decreasing rework.”
Visit Booth #437 to demo the Moisture Optimization module.
About METER Group
METER Group AG, a Decagon and UMS combined company, delivers real-time, high-resolution data that fuels production and processes for the food quality, environmental research, urban and agriculture sectors. Through the power of its employees, METER combines science, engineering and design expertise to turn physical measurements into useful information. www.metergroup.com