It never fails to amaze us at the broad spectrum of customers coming to us for magnets.   Just when we think we’ve run out of new industries to cater to,  we get another call for a use which probably no person other than the guy on the other end, would be familiar.  We all know that certain fast food restaurants sell chicken nuggets.  Well, those little nuggets have to be consistently chopped by “choppers” down to a certain size.  Those “choppers” are metal and over time, metal fragments will wear off and drop in a conveyor line.  We have sold conveyor belt magnets to food processing companies to eliminate this threat and insure a pure product line free of metal contaminants.

Yet another use, same scenario, is potato chips processors.  Potatoes have to be sliced and diced and it’s critical that no metal end up in the food line.  Vegetable plant processors, think broccoli and asparagus, also use conveyor magnets to maintain a pure product line and eliminate metal contaminants from entering the food processing line. There are magnets for all needs, in the case of the food industry, the magnets, specifically their housings, must be “food grade” stainless steel for corrosion resistance.

Another area where magnets are used is to extract the cutlery from the trays of discarded airline food. While only the folks in first class get meals on trays, the forks, knives and spoons from these trays have to be separated by the flight catering companies.  Once a flight is landed and the dirty trays removed from the plane, there are conveyor lines which transport the dirty trays upon which magnets are placed in order to ensure that all cutlery is removed from the flight trays before washing.

In a world where so much is in front of our eyes, it’s kind of interesting to know how magnets assist in the “behind the scenes” world that make it all happen.