Lobster wrap

Packaging Automation​ (PA) has come up with a high oxygen gas flushing heat sealing machine which aims to provide specifically designed packaging to ensure the freshness of lobster.

PA's technical team fitted the standard semi-automatic, rotary table machine, the PA2016, with longer stroke cylinders than the norm, which enabled the packaging of the unusually shaped object.

PA did the custom-building job for one of its longest established customers, the Poachers Smoke House which is based in Wiltshire, UK, and which is part of fish specialists, the Macrae Group.

Factory manager Iain Herd was faced with the problem of coming up with the ideal way of sealing a whole cooked lobster laid in a plastic tray. The demand came from the supermarket chain Waitrose, one of the Smoke House's biggest customers, with the added stipulation that there had to be a peelable seal at the end of the package which also had to be capable of extending the shelf life of one of the store chain's more expensive food lines.

Herd said: ''In the run up to Christmas our lobster production increases tenfold, however we regularly produce a great many packs of poached salmon, and one of the advantages of the PA machine and its tooling is the quick changeovers we can make. It takes us no more than 15 or 20 minutes and that's a big advantage when you are making the changeover each day.''​

Packaging Automation was established in 1963 and is the UK's leading manufacturer of heat sealing machinery for the food industry. Operating from 'state of the art' premises located in Knutsford, the business employs 120 people and produces a wide range of equipment, from simple manual units and semi-automatics through to in-line fully automated systems. The company also manufactures volumetric fillers, conveyors and various other ancillary equipment.