Hygiene is a very important factor to be considered when it comes to food. None of us prefer to eat at a place where food is not being prepared or served hygienically. It is not just unappetizing; it is also very unhealthy. Same is applied to a food processing industry. Although we cannot see how the food is processed, packaged or stored, we try to go for bigger brands like Chitale Bandhu when it comes to sweets or Amul when it comes to dairy products. This is because we trust that their products will be 100% safe to consume and believe us a lot of effort goes into building this trust.
In our previous article “Hygiene Issues in Food Processing”, we saw the various factors contributing to hygiene problems and food safety issues in processing industries. We also mentioned that technological advances have helped to gain a better control over these problems. In today’s topic “RAGHAV in Food Industry”, let us see how our smart AGV – RAGHAV can help improve and maintain the hygiene and sanitary conditions in all aspects.
Manual handling: With RAGHAV on board, the manual material handling is reduced to a minimum. With our automatic pick and place mechanism, now all the work gets done by itself without even the slightest human interference, may it be tons of raw material like vegetables or fruits, or delicate finished products like packets of chips or bottles of cold drinks. RAGHAV comes in multiple variants and can be customized as per your load requisites. Since the labor requirement is reduced, the companies do not have to spend fortunes on their health checkups, sanitization and equipment like gloves, masks, aprons etc. Less human contact also means lesser germs and infections and reduced possibility of human errors.
Storage: We saw that maintaining hygiene while packaging or storing the food is as much important as that during processing. If the food is prepared under well maintained environmental conditions like humidity and temperature control, but stored unhealthily, it gets bad. RAGHAV helps to transfer and store the food in warehouses in a much better way. It is fast, comes with the feature of on-track charging and has a battery backup of 12+ hours, so there is minimum down time. Quicker storage always helps preserve the foodstuffs especially the perishable ones like dairy.
Machinery maintenance: Conveyors or pallet trucks used 
in food processing industries suffer much wear and tear from often being cleaned with hot water and disinfectants. But you might remember, we have always underlined that RAGHAV is easy to maintain as its free from rust, abrasion and petite in size. Moreover, RAGHAV does not work on fuel, hence there are no harmful emissions in the premises. The food remains safe & healthy and so does the overall environment.
Small industries with minimal affordability:
Not all companies can afford to install high end automation systems which are expensive, take up larger space and require many pre-installation procedures. Here RAGHAV comes as a blessing. No major shop floor modifications are required for its installation. What’s more? It also works efficiently with non-standard trolleys. These features make it very affordable for smaller industries so that they do not have to rely on ma
nual material handling anymore. This helps them to maintain the highest hygiene standards at lower costs.
In India there are many government bodies that look after food safety. We have defined standards and rules to be followed before you even get the permission for selling your food products in the market. Now a days we usually scan the product for FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) mark before buying it. These standards are in place to make sure that even the smaller industries follow safety procedures to eliminate the food borne diseases. And as seen above, with RAGHAV’s help this issue can definitely be curbed to a great extent.
Can you suggest better ways to improve hygiene in food processing companies? Please give your suggestions in the comments section below.
