JPH0646747A - Automatic production system of cut vegetable utilizing vacuum cooling - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automate processes other than preparing process by introducing operating processes consisting of centrifugal dehydration of cut vegetables after washing, vacuum cooling after housing in a vessel, weighing, packaging, deaeration and housing into a corrugated cardboard. CONSTITUTION:Lettuce, etc., are moved from a storage cabinet to a preparing working desk 2 by a conveyer and unnecessary outer leaves, roots, cores, etc., are removed and the vegetables are washed in a primary washing tank 3 and cut in line or square by a slicer 4. These cut vegetables are cleaned with a turning secondary cleansing tank 5, passed through a water removing conveyer 6 and subjected to finish cleansing in tertiary cleansing tank 7. These cut vegetables are dehydrated by a centrifugal dehydrating machine 8 and then housed in a housing box 9 and passed through a box loader 10 and cooled with a vacuum cooling device 11. These cut vegetables after cooling are passed through a palletizer and moved from a hopper 14 to computer weighing machine 15 with a conveyer and led to packaging machine 16, a vacuum automatic packaging machine 17, a metal detector 18, a storage tank 19 and packed in a corrugated cardboard box and stored in a refrigerator for production.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automated production system for automating the production of cut vegetables using a vacuum cooling device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there have been the following methods for producing cut vegetables. After carrying in the raw material vegetables from the field first, perform the adjustment work to remove inedible parts such as roots and cores, wash in a washing tank, cut into a desired shape with a slicer, then further wash, insects, Cell liquid is removed to remove dust, bacteria, etc. and to prevent browning. Next, the washed cut vegetables are dehydrated by a centrifuge to keep their freshness for a long time, then weighed by a weighing machine, packed in a plastic film sachet, and cooled by a vacuum cooling device at about 3 ° C. The product of cut vegetables is obtained through the steps of cooling to 1, and vacuum packaging with an automatic vacuum packaging machine. These steps were batch processes. As a manufacturing method used for vacuum cooling of the cut vegetables, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-63, proposed by the present inventors.
The one described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 24649 is cited.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned conventional method or production method for producing cut vegetables, the cut vegetables are cooled by a vacuum cooling method, so that the cooling is performed in an average time in a short time.
It is hygienic and the cut surface becomes cork due to the evaporation of water,
It has effective characteristics for keeping freshness, such as preventing entry of bacteria and removing ethylene gas that causes aging. However, in the conventional production method, loading and unloading of the cut vegetables into and from the vacuum cooling device is a batch system, and a problem remains in terms of complete automation of the cut vegetables.

[0004]

Means for Solving the Problems As a result of earnest research on an automated method in the production of cut vegetables, the present inventor has found that after the washing process of the cut vegetables, the cut vegetables are automatically loaded and unloaded, for example, upper loading and lower loading. Using a possible special dehydrator, the cut vegetables that have been automatically carried out are stored in a container, the container is carried into a vacuum cooling device, after cooling, it is carried out automatically, and the cut vegetables are transferred from the container to a conveyor, and a computer The present invention has been found out that it becomes possible to automate all the processes except the adjusting process by transporting them to a weighing machine. That is, the present invention, vegetable preparation, slicing, washing, dehydration, vacuum cooling, in the production of cut vegetables by each process of packaging, the cut vegetables after washing are automatically carried in, dehydrated using a centrifugal dehydrator capable of carrying out, The dehydrated cut vegetables carried out from the centrifugal dehydrator are stored in a container, the container is carried in and cooled in a vacuum cooling device, and automatically taken out, and the cut vegetables are conveyed from the cooled cut vegetable storage container by a conveyor, and automatically. Cut vegetables using vacuum cooling characterized by automatically packing in plastic film sachets after weighing with a weighing machine, degassing with an automatic vacuum packaging machine, sealing the opening, and automatically storing in a cardboard box. Related to the automated production system.

In the present invention, in the dehydration step after the washing step, a centrifugal dehydrator is used that can carry in cut vegetables from the upper part and, after dehydration, take out the cut vegetables from the lower part, such as automatic carrying in and out. Then, the cut vegetables taken out from the centrifugal dehydrator are stored in a container such as a plastic, such as a box or a bag. The containers containing the cut vegetables may be used as they are, but preferably they are stacked in a plurality of stages by a box loader or the like and cooled by a vacuum cooler. This allows a large amount of vegetables to be cooled at once. Further, the cut vegetables are transferred to the belt conveyor by an automatic means such as inverting a container containing the vacuum-cooled cut vegetables, for example, a box. The box is inverted by, for example, a box damper. The cut vegetables transferred to the belt conveyor are carried into an automatic weighing machine, weighed, automatically packed into plastic film sachets, and sent to a packaging process having an automatic vacuum packaging machine. After vacuum-cooling this cut vegetable storage container, automation is promoted by introducing an operation process of bringing the cut vegetables into an automatic weighing machine by an automatic means such as inversion of the container and weighing the cut vegetables during the production process of the cut vegetables. It is.

[0006]

[Function] The cut vegetables are dehydrated by using a centrifugal dehydrator that can be automatically carried in and out such as the upper carry-in and the lower carry-out type, and the dehydrated cut vegetables are stored in a plastic container and vacuum-cooled as they are. By slicing, washing, and dehydrating, by adopting a system in which cut vegetables are conveyed to a weighing machine by a belt conveyor by an automatic means such as inverting the container, the adjustment process for removing inedibles such as roots and soil of vegetables is removed. All other steps in the production of cut vegetables, such as vacuum cooling, packaging, can be automated.

[0007]

EXAMPLE An example of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
The invention is not limited to these examples. The lettuce is harvested in the field and brought into the raw material storage box in a box. Lettuce is supplied from the raw material storage 1 to the work desk 2 in the adjustment work room by a conveyor. The speed of the conveyor is controlled by the inverter according to the progress of adjustment (trimming) work. At the adjustment work desk 2, unnecessary outer leaves, roots, cores, etc. are manually removed. Then, the primary cleaning tank 3 is washed with clean water and water bubbles to remove mud, foreign matter, insects and the like. Cut the lettuce into lines or squares with a slicer 4 and drop it into the water flow duct. This is because the supply of oxygen is cut off by water because the respiratory action increases rapidly immediately after the cutting. The cut vegetables are transferred by water flow and washed while moving in the swirling flow secondary cleaning tank 5 to remove the cell liquid. The washed cut vegetables are further subjected to final washing in the third washing tank 7 with a jet stream of water. Next, using two centrifugal dehydrators 8, carry in every 5 minutes,
Alternating dehydration. In the past, it was carried into the inner basket, after centrifugal dewatering, the inner basket was picked up by a crane and carried out,
In the present invention, a centrifugal dehydrator having a structure in which it is charged from the upper portion and discharged from the lower portion after completion of the dehydration operation is used to automate the work of loading, dehydrating and carrying cut vegetables. Since the discharged cut vegetables are close to a lump, they are stored in the storage box 9 and stacked in three stages by the box loader 10. The number of steps for stacking the boxes can be increased or decreased as desired. The three-tiered boxes are automatically conveyed and stored in the vacuum chamber of the vacuum cooling device 11, and the vacuum cooling device starts operation when the push button is pressed by the signal lamp indicating the completion of storage, and the cooling is completed in about 20 minutes. The other vacuum devices 11 repeat the same operation alternately.

Cut vegetables that have been cooled are palletizers
After passing through 12, the box damper 13 transfers the storage box from the storage box to the hopper 14 and then to the conveyor, and sends it to the computer weighing machine 15. Since the computer weighing machine 15, the bagging machine 16 and the vacuum automatic packaging machine 17 are combined and integrated and are automated, the cut vegetables brought in are weighed, packed and vacuum packaged, for example, 1 kg, 1 .5
It is delivered as a small bag of film such as kg. The small bag passes through the metal detector 18, is guided to the storage tank 19, is packed in a cardboard box, and is stored in the product refrigerator 20. The amount of cut vegetables produced here is 1,200 kg / hour.
The number of workers is 12 people for trimming, 2 people for foreign matter monitoring and removal work,
There were 16 palletizer staff and 1 vacuum cooling staff. Approximately 1 cut vegetable from the final product of 16 tons of lettuce
Obtained in a yield of 0 tons. The whole process of these cut vegetables and their work details are shown in the following table.

[0009]

[Table 1]

In Table 1, operations other than steps 1, 2, and 20 can be carried out fully automatically from the primary cleaning step of step 3 to the vacuum packaging step of 17. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Publication No. 63-246, which is a production method for vacuum cutting cut vegetables.
In the invention described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 49, since the cut vegetables are filled in a plastic bag after dehydration, the steps from carrying out from the centrifuge, weighing, packing in small bags, stacking baskets, vacuum cooling, stacking, and vacuum packaging are automated. Was not done.

[0011]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY In the present invention, dehydration is carried out using a centrifugal dehydrator capable of automatic carry-in and carry-out such as upper carry-in, lower carry-out type, and the dehydrated cut vegetables are stored in a container such as a box and vacuum-cooled. By adopting a system that transfers cut vegetables to a conveyor by an automatic means such as inverting the container and conveys them to a weighing machine, all processes from primary cleaning of vegetables to vacuum packaging of cut vegetables, which was difficult to automate conventionally, can be performed. It is automated and can produce cut vegetables efficiently.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a process schematic diagram of production of cut vegetables of the present invention. 3 Primary Washing Tank 4 Slicer 5 Swirling Secondary Washing Tank 6 Draining Conveyor 7 Tertiary Washing Tank 8 Automatic Dewatering Machine 9 Storage Box 10 Box Loader 11 Vacuum Cooling Device 12 Palletizer B 13 Box Damper 14 Hopper 15 Computer Weighing Machine 16 Small Bag Packing Machine 17 Automatic vacuum packaging machine 18 Metal detector 19 Storage tank

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location 9281-4B A23B 7/04

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. In the production of cut vegetables by the steps of adjusting vegetables, slicing, washing, dehydrating, vacuum cooling, and packaging, the cut vegetables after washing are dehydrated by using a centrifugal dehydrator capable of automatically carrying in and out, The dehydrated cut vegetables carried out from the centrifugal dehydrator are stored in a container, the container is loaded into a vacuum cooling device, cooled and automatically carried out, and the cut vegetables are conveyed from the cooled cut vegetable storage container by a conveyor and automatically weighed. After that, it is automatically packed in small plastic film bags, degassed by an automatic vacuum packaging machine, the opening is sealed, and automatically stored in a cardboard box. 2. The automated production system of vacuum-cooled cut vegetables according to claim 1, wherein the centrifugal dehydrator is of an upper carrying-in and a lower carrying-out. 3. The automated production system of vacuum-cooled cut vegetables according to claim 1, wherein the cut vegetables are carried out from the container by reversing the container. 4. The automated production system of cut vegetables using vacuum cooling according to claim 3, wherein the cut vegetable storage container is inverted by a box damper. 5. The automated production system for vacuum-cutting cut vegetables according to claim 1, 2, 3 or 4, wherein the cut vegetable storage container is made of plastic, and the containers are stacked in one or several stages and cooled. 6. The automated production method of cut vegetables using vacuum cooling according to claim 5, wherein the cut vegetable storage container is a box or a bag.