With Ishida, coffee has been served

The multihead Ishida weighing machines gurantees a speed and accuracy to one of Italy’s biggest brand - illy - that uses it for two types of packs.

An entry-level Ishida CCW-SE-210 with 2 litre hoppers is counting by weight to pack 18 Illy coffee capsules into a quadro bag for the Italian retail market, while two mid-range CCW-RS-210 weighers with 5 litre hoppers are dedicated to packing 3kg tins of illy coffee beans for the foodservice sector worldwide.

Story of quality in grains. Established in 1933 and still a family-owned business, illy pioneered the pressurised system for its coffee beans in 1934 which today is still the process that ensures the preservation of the unique aromas and flavours of the company’s carefully selected coffee beans. To preserve the quality of the product in time and place illy produces
its own 3 kg cans which are supplied to restaurants and cafes. In addition, the company’s technical team is responsible for the design of the filling lines, with much of the equipment manufactured to illy’s bespoke specifications.

After having abandoned the single head weighing system for 3 kg tins, replacing it with Ishida technology, illy has obtained a series of advantages: as well as delivering accuracy to within 3-4 g of target weight, a key benefit of the new weighers has been their speed. This has enabled illy to increase the packing operation from 10 to 25 cans per minute. Both weighers are discharging the coffee into illy’s bespoke filling system, which incorporates a series of rotating chutes that direct the coffee beans into the moving cans.

Thanks to its 5 litre hoppers the Ishida weighers can achieve the high target weight in a single product dump. Because after the roasting process, some coffee beans can occasionally stick together, the pool hoppers incorporate a grid designed by illy that prevents clumps of beans falling into the weigh hopper.
With the increases in speed from the weighers (operating 24 hours a day, five days a week) the line is now handling around 45 tonnes of coffee beans every day.
Carlo Valente from illy’s Technical Department says they are easy to operate and confirms their reliability as one of their most important benefits.

«The settings for the different coffee varieties (standard, decaffeinated, dark and extra dark) handled by the weigher are stored in its memory and are easily called up on the Remote Control Unit for fast and simple changeovers».  he explains. “We have also been very pleased with the reliability of the Ishida weighers, which have continued to perform without any problems since their installation.”
Thanks to the hygienic design of the weighers, with smooth lines and surfaces that avoid dust traps, and the simple dismantling and re-hanging of the hoppers without the need for tools, the weigher cleaning operations have also been greatly simplified.

Exclusive capsules. The 10 head Ishida CCW-SE offers speed, accuracy and efficiency at an entry-level price and is ideal for all types of dry applications. At illy, the weigher is being used for the company’s exclusive Iperespresso capsule system that has brought authentic espresso preparation to the home. With the capsules all being of a practically identical weight, the CCW-SE-210 is able to count 18 coffee capsules into flat-bottomed quadro bags at around 50 packs per minute. Again, the weigher discharges the pods into an illy-designed handling system that transfers them to the bags. What is more, the checkweighers were supplied by Itech, for years Ishida agent for Italy, appreciated by illy for the guaranteed assistance and service.