Speedy veg packing

Kettle Produce has installed Ilapak's high performance Vegatronic 3000 vertical, form, fill and seal (VFFS) packaging machine after upgrading its existing production line in Fife, Scotland.

A supplier to all the leading retailers in the UK, Kettle has expanded its premises in and upgraded its existing packaging equipment in order to increase production. To meet multiple retailers' stringent quality requirements, the company needed packaging machines capable of combining high throughputs with delicate product handling and excellent pack quality.

Ilapak's Vegatronic 3000 range provided the answer and Kettle now has five Vegatronic packaging lines handling all types of fresh produce. Prepared carrots are packed at speeds of 120 bags a minute while difficult to handle leafy vegetables can be packed at up to 55 bags a minute, Ilapak claims. The Vegatronic machines are also capable of producing modified atmosphere packs when required.

Douglas Bathgate, operations manager at Kettle Produce, commented: "The new Vegatronic 3000 packaging lines have allowed us to achieve an increase in productivity of around 15 per cent. They're capable of handling delicate produce at high speeds while maintaining very good pack quality and sealing integrity.​

The machines are in operation 20 hours a day and handle our entire range of produce so it was also important that they should be flexible and easy to use, with quick film changeovers, which in fact take 10 minutes at most."​

The Vegatronic 3000 range achieves these speeds using a continuous film motion to form a bag from a single reel of wrapping material, unwound at a constant speed while filling and sealing the bag simultaneously.

Its box motion jaws travel with the film, dramatically increasing seal dwell and improving film tracking capabilities, mechanically cycling at exceptionally high speeds, while also improving efficiency and making film savings.

Bathgate added: "We have found Ilapak's standards of service and response times to be very good. The machines themselves are very easy to maintain and experience few breakdowns but Ilapak have been very helpful in other areas, and are always willing to assist with projects at the plant, even if not directly related to their own equipment."​

The UK-based Ilapak Group​ is an international organisation which produces and supplies packaging machines and automatic feeding systems on a world-wide basis. The company's manufacturing operation consists of four independent units each with its own team of experts dedicated to a specific machine type.

For more information on the complete range of Ilapak equipment please contact the company​.