Salami Snack Sorting Robots Operate at Super Speed

Humans are just so very slow at sorting salami snacks! So Unilever hired ABB Robotics partner, robomotion GmbH from Stuttgart, Germany to come up with an automated robotic solution. In the video, the robots grab three salamis at a time from a loaded conveyor belt, and then neatly place them in a "rollstock machine" at incredible speeds. From there, the salamis are whisked away to be wrapped in packaging, officially becoming Peperamis. Peperamis (portmanteau of "peperoni" and "salamis") are commonly sold in the UK, and are known as the "meat retreat."

Apparently if you use robots, you can gain a meat-sorting performance increase of up to 25 percent "compared with manual loading." Unilever's chief engineer, Carim Gad, said that the robots came in super-handy in the run-up to the World Cup, because "production shifts were operating at the weekend. This alone gave us a competitive edge, enabling us to deliver Peperamis to our customers on schedule." Only with robots could soccer fans have their meat needs fully met. Science!

Video: Picking and packing salami snacks

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