FEATURE Robotics


Two separate food applications, one at Gü Indulgent Foods and another at Dale Farm Foods, have both demonstrated the value of FANUC robotics in  and worker welfare


ROBOTS ARE RESHAPING FOOD MANUFACTURING T


he food and beverage industry has been slower to adopt automation than some other areas of


manufacturing. Short-term supplier


contracts and a reliance on cheap labour have proved obstacles to investment for some food producers, limiting their ability to grow their production capabilities. Fortunately, automation systems incorporating robotics from suppliers such as FANUC are now becoming a common sight in many food factories around the UK, boosting productivity, improving worker welfare and enabling manufacturers to swiftly respond to changing customer demand. Accurate, reliable and fast, robots are ideal for repetitive, dull or laborious tasks where people add little value, such as packing, picking, placing and palletising – leaving the human workforce to concentrate on the parts of production where 


Gü Indulgent Foods  automation is Gü Indulgent Foods. Since their   trajectory. As demand soared, Gü needed to expand its packing hall at its production facility in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire. It turned to FANUC partner Tekpak Automation, based in Wexford, for an automated answer to its productivity problem. “Gü requested a second packing line  area,” explained Darragh Sinnott, Technical Director for Tekpak Automation. “They also wanted greater cartoning and palletising  Gü’s new quad-packs – the quad-pack x4 – as well as the existing variety of case formats:


8 March 2026 | Automation


twin-packs x6 and twin-packs x4.” Tekpak set about designing a system that could meet these exacting demands. With the help of FANUC’s virtual programming software, ROBOGUIDE, it determined the exact robot models – paying attention to requirements for payload, speed and reach – that would alleviate Gü’s production capacity constraints.


“The end-to-end packaging line we installed begins at the depalletising stage,”   a time, onto a pair of receiving conveyors. One FANUC R-2000iC/165F six-axis robot handles this job, and also removes the layer card that separates each layer. The pallets are supported and indexed up by two industrial-  motors that feed the depalletising robot, ensuring a seamless depalletising process.” The Tekpak system then collates the ramekins, loads them into cartons with integrated laser printing, and case packs with  palletising process begins. Again, a FANUC R-2000iC/165F six-axis industrial robot is employed here. “With FANUC’s help, we


created the required matrix of  case formats to give Gü greater  Sinnott. “And as the FANUC palletising robot is equipped with automatic size change, there’s no requirement to change the end-of-arm tooling when switching from one pattern format to another.” For Tekpak, having FANUC


automationmagazine.co.uk ROBOTS ARE RESHAPING FOOD MANUFACTURING


as their partner on this project proved invaluable. “FANUC robots are known for their reliability, plus their support to assist with complex and time critical projects like this is second to none,” said Sinnott. “The team of FANUC engineers that our team collaborate with are a fantastic asset. They helped us set up complex applications and trained our in-house software team so we can support the customer going forward. This is a huge part of what made FANUC the perfect robotics partner for this project.” Andrzej Rosa is Head of Engineering for Gü Indulgent Foods. He said: “The new  and increased our production capacity. The FANUC robots are quick, robust and reliable and are proving a valuable addition to our operation.”


Dale Farm Foods Based in Co. Kildare, Power Food Technology is a specialist system integrator providing cooling and freezing solutions to the food industry. When it received a request from the UK and Ireland’s largest cheddar cheese


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