Goal: Ensure food safety with 100 percent inline temperature control of each meal tray.
Challenge
Chilled meals are filled hot and sometimes reheated by microwave. Samples with hand-held thermometers do not provide complete coverage and miss surface temperature per compartment, when that very temperature is crucial for preservation and shelf life.
Solution
Vision Partners investigated inline thermal inspection with radiometric cameras. For each tray, we measure each compartment, compare it to receptacle-specific temperature thresholds and immediately trigger an alarm or reject if exceeded.
A reference source and emissivity correction limit measurement errors; reflections from foil are filtered out by software.
Linkage to plant systems provides real-time adjustment and logging.
Result
- 100 percent control without line delay
- Less under or over heating, lower waste better taste
- Fuller audit trail by batch and SKU
- Scalable to multiple lines and recipes
