Mettler-Toledo Safeline Ltd Wins 2nd Queen’s Award for Enterprise

Mettler-Toledo Safeline Ltd has been awarded a second Queen’s Award for Enterprise, this time in the Innovation category.

The 2016 award follows The Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade presented to the company in 2012. The leading supplier of metal detection systems for food, beverage and pharmaceutical production lines has received the highest award for businesses in the UK for developing its family of Profile metal detection products.

The Queen’s Award for Enterprise is a prestigious awards programme for British businesses and organizations that excel at trade, innovation or sustainable development and has been presented each year since 1966. To be awarded the honor in the Innovation category, a company must demonstrate outstanding commercial success as a result of innovation over multiple years.

“This Award recognizes the deep expertise of the SAFELINE team and its reputation for the design and manufacture of technologically advanced metal detectors. With over 100,000 systems installed globally, we have accumulated thousands of man-years of experience, which allows us to continuously improve our products and processes. On behalf of the global network of Mettler-Toledo employees, I am proud that the company has received this prestigious award in recognition of its high performance products and commitment to innovation,” said Alan Purvis, Managing Director, Mettler-Toledo Safeline Ltd.

Mettler-Toledo Safeline has been manufacturing metal detection systems for global food, beverage and pharmaceutical producers since 1988. It works in collaboration with international standard bodies and multinational retailers to develop guidelines for food and pharmaceutical safety in order to protect consumer welfare and brand reputation. The company's most recent innovation - and the primary focus of The Queen's Award – is the launch of the Profile Advantage metal detection system, which overcomes product effect to detect more metal in challenging applications. The new detector delivers up to 50% improved detection capabilities, and use of these improved metal detectors allows customers to meet or exceed food safety standards whilst avoiding inefficient and costly false rejects.

The industry standard is to use detectors tuned to a single radio frequency; Safeline has developed signal generation and processing techniques to deploy tuned, variable and dual frequency detectors. The development effort to achieve this has been significant, with five granted patents and five further disclosures going through the patenting process. The company collaborates closely with the University of Manchester, sponsoring several PhDs to underpin its technology.

Quality standards governing the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries are becoming increasingly stringent within the GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) framework, such as the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Version 7, International Featured Standard (IFS), and the USA’s 2015 Food Safety Modernization Act.

Mettler-Toledo Safeline’s metal detection technologies enable manufacturers to ensure compliance with best practice and due diligence to protect consumers from metal contamination whilst minimizing the risk of reputation-damaging product recalls.

The company forms part of Mettler-Toledo’s Product Inspection Division, which supplies metal detection, x-ray inspection, checkweighing and vision inspection solutions. All solutions can be linked through the company’s bespoke Prod-X data management software, allowing manufacturers to control their entire product inspection management process from a single point or multiple remote locations, eliminating the need for time-consuming production line controls.