Product category:
General packaging materials, equipment and services
News Release from: Ulma Packaging | Subject: Atlanta Hi-Tech
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 16 June 2006
Organic Tomato Producer Standardises
Packing Kit
The UK's largest organic produce grower has taken the decision to standardise its packing operations in partnership with a machinery manufacturer to reduce total life-time and operating costs.
The UK's largest organic produce grower has taken the decision to standardise its packing operations in partnership with a machinery manufacturer to reduce total life-time and operating costs Wight Salads produces 70 different pack types a day for the major UK supermarkets, based on its core organic and non-organic tomato crops from its growing sites in Kent, the Isle of Wight, Spain and Portugal
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 20 Nov 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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After buying its first Ulma Packaging horizontal packing machine in 2000, Wight Salads standardised on Ulma equipment in a partnership because of the quality of Ulma's engineering support.
As Wight Salads' supply chain director, Jack Cox, explained: "We had plenty of opportunities to buy cheaper equipment but we knew that standardisation and spares stockholding based on commonality of parts, added to the reliability of Ulma's equipment, would reduce our long-term costs.
There are also other significant benefits in that each of our packing sites can run in exactly the same fashion, using identical systems and we have been able to automate our packing to save further costs." Wight Salads now has six of Ulma's Atlanta Hi-Tech horizontal packing machines, which include a multi-shaft electronic control to synchronise the main movements of the three main shafts of each machine.
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That gives the high versatility and flexibility in product changes sought by Wight Salads as the Atlanta Hi-Techs attain speeds of up to 100 packs per minute, said Ulma.
Jack Cox commented: "With so many pack changes every day in each of our high throughput packing operations, it is essential we have easy, fast, problem-free change-overs.
They involve changes of punnet type and size, and film and label changes.
We also use biodegradable films for our organic tomatoes and standard films for standard produce, which adds another dimension to the need for machine flexibility." According to Ulma, because the Atlanta Hi-Tech synchronises the main movements of its three main shafts (between clamps, rollers, and the feeding unit), the machine benefits from perfect dynamics in its movements, creating less wear and tear and increasing reliability.
The machine is also entirely built on a vertical plate to ease cleaning, thereby further accelerating product change-overs.
Ulma Packaging's sales manager Jerry Fletcher said: "Wight Salads is certainly at the forefront of a gathering trend in the fresh produce sector as more producers are moving towards automation in their packing operations.
This is important in a sector that has traditionally relied on manual labour, particularly as quality staff has become very hard to find.".
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