The equipment used to size potato and other
vegetable chips in the snack industry has
remained the same for many years and has
several limitations.

We worked to find an engineering partner to supply more recent
technological innovations that overcome these limitations.

Our client asked:

Our food and beverage client asked us to identify partners who could supply
physical separator process equipment better tailored to size its potato chips,
along with accompanying engineering support.

The project story:

We began by looking at potential solutions from adjacent industries – including
process, chemical, banking, mining, agricultural, and pharma – while also
undertaking secondary research and a literature review.

We ranked potential solutions using key criteria – such as gentle handle,
throughput, design flexibility, and food safety – which we then discussed in
a workshop with the client and selected the companies to be included in our
deep-dive phase.

We recommended two of the most promising potential engineering partners,
who matched most of the criteria set by our client.

Results: deliverables and outcomes

Our client found technologies with the potential to solve some of the limitations
of their existing physical separator equipment – including low efficiency (around
50%) and vulnerability to the shape and orientation of the chip as it passes the
sizing holes.

The recommended solutions were also able to solve issues related to spacing
variability, which is often limited and manually adjusted based on visual
inspection of the sizing efficiency and, therefore, could be prone to user error.

The client now has an actionable plan to improve the quality of their chips’
sizing and has improved on the limitations of their existing technology.