Tube Conveyors

The Demanding Nature of Breakfast Cereal Manufacturing


In the wide world of food manufacturing, a few basic product types stand out as being some of the most challenging to come to grips with. While processed foods like pasteurized cheeses, pickles, and potato chips can be fairly simple to turn out, others are typically much more difficult. One of the most problematic of all product types, in practice, is the kind of simple breakfast cereal that so many people look forward to starting their days with.



There are a number of reasons why this is true. For one, breakfast cereals tend to be composed of relatively small, dry units that are also typically very delicate. As anyone who has emptied a box of cereal down to the very bottom can attest, this generally means that cereals are fairly fragile and prone to turning into dust when they are handled roughly.

What is an inconvenience, albeit sometimes an unappetizing one, for those who eat cereal turns out to be a major difficulty for those who manufacture it, though. If a significant portion of a box of cereal can turn into fine, largely inedible dust through the course of normal shipping and handling, it is not hard to imagine how much worse the problem could become on a demanding production line.

Far from simply accepting the associated waste, though, cereal manufacturers and those who design and produce the equipment they rely upon have come up with good solutions. A whole class of these focus on the machinery used to transport cereal throughout the production process, with specialized tools like Tube Conveyors standing where a common conveyor belt might be expected, instead.

What a Tubular Drag Conveyor offers, at the most basic level, is much more delicate handling and movement of the cereal. Instead of allowing individual pieces of cereal to jostle together and grind against the walls of the belt, producing dust, it takes a much gentler, air-driven approach.

A tube-based Cable Conveyor offers an even more advanced take on this basic technology. Instead of making use of a drag chain that tends to fill up with dust, it relies on a slick cable that passes harmlessly through masses of cereal. Companies like Cablevey Conveyors design these products with the needs of cereal manufacturers in mind, knowing that by doing so they can greatly improve the efficiency. In addition to offering important advantages of these kinds, these specialized conveyors also frequently deliver other benefits, like better protection of foodstuffs from contamination.