Checkweigher Passes Bake Off Test for Costco

Precision Weighing Solutions: Costco Enhances Bakery Quality with ZQ375 Checkweigher

Overview

Costco, the UK’s national Cash & Carry Membership Warehouse that produces and stocks a wide range of food products, has upgraded its scales to Avery Weigh Tronix’s new ZQ375 Checkweigher to achieve more accurate weighing for its bakery and confectionary ingredients.

Costco has installed six ZQ375-30kg units at each of its newest warehouses at Leicester, Southampton, and Farnborough and one larger, floor standing 90kg capacity ZQ375 for bulk weighing in the Butchery Departments. The equipment must meet stringent hygiene standards and must also precisely weigh a wide range of ingredients, from custard to food dye, to ensure a high-quality final product.

Consistently accurate checkweighing

Says Wayne Parsons, Regional Bakery Manager for Costco: “At Costco we take a lot of pride in the fact that we freshly bake a lot of our products in the bakeries at our warehouses. To do this, it is important that the scales we use are consistently accurate, convenient to use, and have an easy-to-read indicator. This allows our bakers to meet their daily quota of produce and deliver a high-quality product.”

Meeting strict food hygiene standards

The ZQ375 Checkweigher has several features that make it ideal for use in food manufacturing and processing applications. The IP69K rating ensures the scale is completely water and dust proof, while its stylish curved design, which eliminates food traps, makes cleaning fast, effective, and hygienically sound.

Parsons continues, “One of the most important features of this scale for us is that it is a lot easier to clean than the previous model. Hygiene is obviously very important to us as we thoroughly clean the scales throughout the day, so this is an especially useful benefit.”

Weighing ingredients with a greater level of accuracy

“Another particularly useful feature of the ZQ375 Checkweigher is that it is capable of five-gram divisions and a capacity of 30kg, whereas the old scales we used were only capable of divisions by ten grams. When dealing with ingredients such as food dye, this feature is particularly useful as it allows a much greater level of accuracy when dealing with smaller quantities.”

The flat scale pan on the ZQ375 Checkweigher makes it easy to place different shaped products on the scales and still get an accurate weight. In the Costco warehouse bakeries where weighed ingredients come in a range of different shapes and sizes, this ensures production remains efficient.

Parsons concludes, “As a business, our bottom line is affected by whether we can deliver the high-quality food products that our customers expect. Investing in this type of equipment helps us to achieve that.”