Add a screen where you dump the bag into. I've worked in dairies mostly and we use a liqwifier (very large blender) that has an opening at the top of about 2 feet in diameter. We've always had screens made that could hook onto sides of the opening and stay in place while we dump our bags, but can also be removed and cleaned as needed.
Another facility I was at used kettles with very large openings. On these it was more challenging, but we made it work with a screen that could hook over the side and be removed when not needed. Since we dealt with different types of ingredients with different size particulates we had 5, or maybe it was 6, different screen hole sizes for each ingredient type that we would pour in. Of course, we still had some issues of the plastic pieces with material that had fruit pieces. We never really fixed this, but anytime we had customer feedback with plastic bag pieces our CEO would have us add a person to that customer's batches specifically to cut the bags properly everytime. I always wondered why we just didn't fix the root problem of holding the operators accountable. We had very good traceability and knew who made each batch and handled each ingredient at every step. But hey..what do I know, I'm just the QA guy, right? :)
Just make sure if you go with the custom screens whoever makes the screens knows how to weld properly. Otherwise you'll create more potential issues with metal fragments or difficult to clean screens (harborage).
Edited by Ryan M., 16 August 2019 - 12:09 AM.