In New Zealand, Clevertech installed a complete automatic system to load and unload the autoclaves with food cans. The canned PET food are fed into the loader & unloader system from the filling line.

The system has to manage five can sizes up to 300 cans per minute. Magnetic heads load and unload the cans and interlayer sheets into and out of the baskets.

The systems are integrated with an interlayer conveyor that transfers the stacks of interlayer sheets from the unloader to the loader. A complete basket conveyor system transfers the loaded baskets to the seven retorts for processing. The processed baskets are removed from the retorts tipped to a 45 degree to remove the remain water from the tops of the cans and then fed to the basket loader.

The system is equipped with the shuttle car that is a dual conveyor unit and uses a tongue for loading and unloading the baskets to the retorts, this eliminates the need for a driven conveyor to be installed inside the retort. The shuttle car users dual drives and laser measuring to provide accurate positioning.

A separate basket loading and unloading conveyor enables pouched product to be processed as well. The system is constructed from stainless and the basket conveyors use selflubricating stainless chain to minimise the maintenance.