Len Wright Salads has replaced its traditional celery-cutting technique with a water-jet system to extend product shelf life.

The new system replaces circular blades to give a better cut and eliminate the potential for contamination.

Len Wright Salads approached Quasar Automation to provide an integrated solution, which is based on a 40HP KMT water pump unit and utilises up to four static 0.15mm diameter nozzles. Celery is passed under the nozzles on a conveyor system, which has the capacity to produce 120 units a minute.

The system has two modes of operation; just using two nozzles to top and tail individual celery sticks, or using all four to cut the celery into smaller portioned lengths.

The Quasar solution has been so successful that production at Len Wright Salads has increased to meet burgeoning customer demand to the extent that company is now looking to purchase a second system.

Quasar’s Bob Hinchcliffe said: “Quasar thrives on defining and creating solutions for some of the most challenging applications. In many instances there are no standard solutions available and these are the areas where we become an invaluable resource to our customers. Our investment in a range of technologies for our in-house development centre, including a six-axis robot, plus water jet and ultrasonic cutting systems, means that we can give our customers the opportunity to research their food processing and cutting applications with robots and automation ahead of making their investment in a production solution.”