Marui Shokuhin Reduces Yield Loss by 90% with Intralox Modular Plastic Spiral Belting

Customer Objectives 

Marui Shokuhin is a leading poultry processor in Japan. Their products include raw and further processed chicken, as well as ready-to-eat foods like fried side dishes and omelets. At their plants in Matsuo and Takaono, Marui used friction-driven spirals equipped with wire mesh belts for product freezing. But Marui began experiencing numerous problems with these systems. 

The wire mesh metal belts’ high tension and heavy weight caused occasional belt flip-ups, which lead to product loss, constant maintenance, and unplanned downtime. The spiral freezers consumed a lot of energy due in part to the metal belts’ heaviness, raising the cost and inefficiency of conditioning efforts. Also, certain products were sticking to the metal belts or were marked by the wire mesh, causing yield loss, quality issues, and product waste. Marui came straight to Intralox for a solution. 

Intralox Execution 

When Intralox’s spiral specialists recommended upgrading from wire mesh to modular plastic belting (MPB), Marui officials had reservations. They’d used Intralox MPB in other applications before, but never in a spiral freezer handling raw product. Based on the long-standing relationship between the two companies and Marui’s trust in Intralox’s expertise, they agreed to retrofit one of their spirals with low-tension MPB.

Intralox’s technical team worked closely with Marui and their OEM partner by performing pre-optimization system inspections, on-site installation support, and frequent post-installation health checks to ensure smooth operation. The retrofitted spiral performed so well that Marui proceeded to upgrade three additional spiral systems from wire mesh metal belting to Intralox MPB. 

Results 

Upgrading the friction-driven spiral freezers to Intralox MPB has helped Marui Shokuhin nearly eliminate the challenges caused by the previous wire mesh belting. There are no more product marking and sticking issues, which have reduced yield loss by 90%. Marui’s plants have experienced no belt-related unscheduled downtime on any of the four upgraded spirals. They are now able to run breaded/fried products on the optimized spiral systems that they previously could not on the wire mesh belts. Intralox’s low-tension spiral belts are much lighter weight, the optimized freezers consume far less energy, and the systems can run at greater capacity. 

Based on their experiences with Intralox modular plastic spiral belting, Marui purchased a brand-new friction-driven spiral system equipped with Intralox MPB. Since then, the company has invested in two new DirectDrive Systems, Intralox’s patented, original low-tension spiral conveyor solution.