Get a Grip With Schmalz’s New Finger Gripper for Hygienic Handling

Industries such as packaging, food processing, and pharmaceuticals often grapple with a dual challenge: ensuring delicate items are safely handled while maintaining strict hygiene standards. From soft pastries to oddly shaped produce, conventional gripping systems struggle to deliver the precision and cleanliness required in these environments. Schmalz has set out to resolve these limitations by introducing the new mGrip finger gripper that integrates gentle handling, modular flexibility, and food-grade hygiene into one robust design.

The mGrip finger gripper is designed to meet the highest standards in hygiene. Image used courtesy of Schmalz

mGrip Finger Gripper

Schmalz’s new mGrip finger gripper is equipped with soft, silicone-based gripper fingers that conform to the shape of each product, ensuring secure yet gentle handling. This innovation minimizes the risk of damage, making it ideal for fragile or irregular items. With its food-grade material composition, the gripper complies with global hygiene standards, eliminating concerns about contamination while ensuring easy cleaning and maintenance.

Gripper Adaptability and Speed

The mGrip finger gripper features a modular design that offers a significant advantage. Users can use various finger sizes, variable positions, opening angles, and forces. These variation options allow users to tailor the gripper to specific operational needs. Whether the application involves picking soft pastries or arranging bottles in packaging lines, the mGrip’s configurable layout can adapt to various tasks.

The mGrip finger gripper features a modular design that enables different finger sizes, positions, and forces to meet the needs of each individual application. Image used courtesy of Schmalz

In addition, the gripper supports precision and speed. Its lightweight construction allows for rapid movement, boosting productivity while maintaining accuracy. The mGrip fingers can support a load capacity of up to 10 kg, with a gripping speed of up to 120 picks per minute.

This lightweight feature also makes the gripper suitable for collaborative robots and other low-payload robots, which are increasingly popular in industries that handle delicate and lightweight products due to safety concerns.

Hygienic Automation

As mentioned, the Schmalz mGrip finger gripper meets the highest hygiene standards, making it ideal for handling sensitive food products. The gripper can be cleaned without disassembly, complying with cleaning in place (CIP) and cleaning out of place (COP) standards. Its non-porous design resists bacterial growth and withstands frequent cleaning cycles, ensuring long-term compliance with hygiene standards. These features make the gripper particularly valuable in food processing and pharmaceutical applications, where maintaining cleanliness is critical to product safety.

The mGrip finger gripper features a fast picking speed, even with difficult-to-handle items such as bagels and croissants. Image used courtesy of Schmalz

Flexibility Across Industries

The mGrip’s unique combination of precision, flexibility, and hygiene makes it suitable for use in various fields. In the food industry, the mGrip enables manufacturers to handle a broader range of products, including soft, delicate, or irregularly shaped items, without compromising quality. In packaging, the gripper’s modularity and adaptability enhance processes by handling products of varying sizes and shapes. Even in pharmaceutical environments, where sterility is non-negotiable, the mGrip’s hygienic design ensures safe and contamination-free operations.

With Schmalz’s new mGrip finger gripper, manufacturers can reduce waste, improve efficiency, and maintain product integrity while adhering to modern production's stringent requirements.