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Sausage Maker Bridges the Gap Between Tradition and Technology with Metal Detectors

State-of-the-art metal detectors help Longhini Sausage Company stay true to its old-world sausage-making techniques and brand heritage while ensuring the safety and quality of its products.

Longhini Sausage Company uses an inline Profile Advantage metal detector, which is rolled around the facility and integrated with various lines to fully automate inspection.
Longhini Sausage Company uses an inline Profile Advantage metal detector, which is rolled around the facility and integrated with various lines to fully automate inspection.
Photo courtesy of Mettler-Toledo Safeline.

Tradition and technology mesh well at Longhini Sausage Company. The New Haven, Conn.-based company says it has stayed true to the handcrafted sausage-making techniques and high standards created by its founder 70 years ago—and it has paid off. Longhini has grown steadily over the years, generating 80% growth over this past year alone. To ensure that it continues to grow, Longhini has installed two Profile Advantage metal detectors from Mettler-Toledo Safeline—technology designed to automate its inspection process and protect the quality of its products and brand heritage.

Italian immigrant Vito Longhini opened Longhini Sausage Company in 1950 in New Haven. He learned sausage making from his father in Fano, Italy, in early 1900s, bringing that knowledge with him to the United States. Today, the third-generation, family-owned company continues to make specialty sausages and other meats using those traditional techniques and all-natural ingredients. The company sells its products to restaurants, delis, and supermarkets in Connecticut and New York.

While Longhini Sausage Company says it has never had any issues with metal contaminating its meat products in its 70-year history, it did not want to take any chances now that it is seeing increased demand for its products. The company sought a metal detector that could automate its inspection process and go beyond standard baseline inspection to find metal fragments smaller than industry requirements.

“Our application is difficult for most metal detectors. Meat products have natural variations in temperature and moisture, plus our wide range of case sizes presents a variation in product density. Products with variable characteristics are hard to accurately inspect,” says Rich Longhini, president of Longhini Sausage Company. “To overcome these challenges, we had to find an unusually advanced metal detector.”

Unlocking the power of versatility

Longhini Sausage Company purchased its first Profile Advantage in 2015. To maximize versatility, the company selected a semi-automated, stand-alone system on wheels that could be moved around its facility to inspect products in cases offline.

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