Feature Packaging Machinery
Tray-less solution at the core of packing savings
A leading fruit packing company is experiencing significant savings after investing in Ulma Packaging’s bespoke Atlanta tray-less flowrapper solution to wrap apples
ent-based Cottage Farms has been growing and packaging fruit for over 50 years. Growing demand for its wide variety of apples and pears has lead to significant investment in new facil- ities and equipment, and as part of this, the company will soon be purchasing its fifth Ulma machine.
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The business packs and supplies fruit direct to one of the UK’s largest retailers and is passing the savings it is making on to its 22 English growers after switching to Ulma’s Atlanta tray-less flowrapper last year, when the supermarket giant told its suppliers that flowrap was its pack of choice. Cottage Farms’ owner, Chris Browning, explained, “Historically polybags were the preferred option but the reason for moving over to flow wrap was customer choice. We decided Ulma’s machine suited our require- ments best and it worked very well for us last year. We are purchasing another Ulma flowrapper for the new packing facility due to start operation in early 2014. “We pack 10,000 tonnes of apples a season and the Ulma equipment is making significant savings, which we are passing on to our growers, because the output of the machine is more than double that of the old polybag machines. It is currently flow wrap- ping between 40-45 packs per minute but with the new machine and the possibility of an automated in-feed, we could see throughput of up to 60+ a minute.”
Other benefits
Browning also pointed out that the Ulma machine has the ability to print required information directly onto the flowrap pack itself - rather than having to deploy staff to apply individual labels, as was the case with polybags. Ulma’s Atlanta tray-less flowrapper is
Automation SEPTEMBER 2013
offered in a variety of configurations based on apples arriving in cardboard boxes, pallet boxes/plastic crates or straight from the grading process. As a further enhance- ment to the process, Ulma can also offer fur- ther line solutions with fully automatic crate packing and palletising.
Over the next few months Ulma will also be announcing an improved operator-less auto in-feed offer for the Atlanta wrapper. This will further enhance the offer with the reduction of operator intervention to feed the apples into the system.
The system can also be used for the tray- less packing of a cross range of fresh produce, which will allow some producers to have the option of often using just one system for all their produce production as the system can also be configured to run with conventionally filled punnets from a de-nester.
In addition to providing a bespoke solution for apple packing, pre-printed roll stock film is used to make the bags, which can subse- quently be labelled and coded immediately prior to flowrapping.
The equipment is designed to produce a horizontally sealed bag using a series of bespoke features on the machine to gently wrap the apples without any damage. From the moment the apples are placed in the machine care is taken at every point of contact to eliminate the risk of bruising. Browning concluded, “We have a very good relationship with Ulma. They are also excel- lent at offering solutions when we are trying to do things with the pack. I have suggested to other growers using different machines that they speak to Ulma as we have always found they are capable of doing a great job.”
Ulma Packaging
www.ulmapackaging.com T: 01909 506 504
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