Dean Foods Company acquires Friendly’s Ice Cream retail and manufacturing business
International recognition for Reaseheath’s Food Centre
Sustainability commitments launched for food & drink manufacturers
Effective, accurate fryer control using new 80 GHz Radar
Boost for British exports as Premier Foods renews Cadbury license
No half measures as Clegg Food Projects secures drinks factory contract
A contract to undertake infrastructure and GMP improvements at a Lucozade, Ribena and Suntory factory has been secured by Clegg Food Projects. The national constructor, designer and engineer of food manufacturing facilities will deliver a multi-million pound project at the factory in Coleford, Gloucestershire.
John Moxon, business development director at Clegg Food Projects, says, “The factory produces our client’s popular range of bottled soft drinks and we will be undertaking work in the production areas on site. We have a vast amount of expertise when dealing with these types of projects and are pleased to be delivering the work.”
Extensive internal installation production will be completed to separate the project work from the live production areas. As part of the works Clegg Food Projects will be delivering a new roof along with improvements to building services installations.
John says, “Due to the size of the site a detailed logistics plan is required to deliver people and materials to and from the project work areas. We work dynamically in order to reflect our clients’ sales and production requirements.
“Our track record in delivering schemes of this size means we are ideally placed to meet the requirements of this contract. Ensuring we work closely with our clients is key to our success and delivering a high level of service every time.”
Clegg Food Projects provides solutions for major food operations all over the country, including design, engineering, specialist construction and consultancy.
UK cider maker revives the traditional art of keeving
Real Good Food takes a bite out of snack bar maker
Bagging at 28% faster speed
Just when you thought sack filling couldn’t get any faster; Pacepacker Services has pulled yet another innovation out of the bag.
Ideal for crop packing agricultural producers and contract packers, the award-winning designer and manufacturer of bagging, pick and place and palletising automation equipment has further enhanced its range of sack placers, creating a new system that is now up to 28% quicker.
Boosting output by almost 360 sacks per hour while running at its maximum speed of 20 sacks per minute, the new sack placer is aptly named ‘The FastPac’. It further enhances Pacepacker’s established sack placing range which has made light and precise work of accurately presenting sacks to a sack clamp for filling for over a quarter of a century. However, it’s not just speed that makes this new addition to the range a showstopper. In yet another first for Pacepacker, the new FastPac system can now handle ANY bulk sack and bag, from paper to plastic and woven polypropylene, including hessian and nets.
Modular in design, customers can select a system that meets their sack placing needs, with the added bonus of being able to easily upgrade as their business expands or application requirements change.
“As a result of this modular construction, customers pay for the system they need and not for features that will sit idle,” emphasises Paul Wilkinson, Pacepacker’s Business Development Manager. “The enclosed construction meets current UK and international safety requirements and a reject system has been integrated to expel poor quality or badly loaded sacks, without the need for manual intervention.” What’s more, customers that have invested in the T20 Series from Pacepacker will be pleased to hear that there’s an upgrade pathway, so they too can benefit from the increased speed and reliability.
The new sack placer has been designed to meet the needs of all agricultural and bulk handling producers, working seamlessly with the higher-spec multi-head weighers which are becoming a common sight in many produce packing plants today. Offering higher speeds at more accurate weights, sack systems need to match the pace of this increased output, which The FastPac system does effortlessly. Sack weights ranging from 2kg up to 50kg can be accommodated.
The FastPac system works by picking up and placing open mouth sacks onto a filling spout, before product is placed into the bag and then sealed. Designed with an innovative linear moving sack clamp, the machine can handle two bags at different stages of the process, resulting in much faster bulk bagging without compromising on control.
“The clamp, which moves to and from the sack placer, enables the next empty bag to be placed whilst the previous one is being manipulated ready for sealing,” explains Paul. “This increased packing capacity makes The FastPac an ideal solution for contract packers where speed and flexibility are paramount,” he adds.
The new ‘FastPac’ sack placer will be on show at the forthcoming LAMMA Show.
SICK safety camera is a versatile light curtain alternative
SICK UK has launched the V300 infra-red vision camera to offer a convenient and reliable Type 3 alternative to a safety guard light curtain in production and warehouse environments.
The ISO 13849-1 PLd compliant and competitively-priced SICK V300 has a resolution of 20mm and is suitable for protection of areas up to 1.5m by 1.5m, or more if synchronised as a multi-device unit.
Dr Martin Kidman, SICK UK machinery safety specialist, says, “The V300 is an incredibly useful device. It also solves the problem where a Type 2 light curtain now no longer meets the requirements for PLd applications and the change to a Type 4 light curtain is too expensive, or is clumsy and intrusive.
“The V300’s compact right-angled mount allows it to be fixed unobtrusively in the top corner of a portal or other entrance access to a guarded area, or even integrated into the steelwork frame. It doesn’t restrict access and is not vulnerable to accidental damage as a light curtain can be. In fact, the reflective tape which the light bounces off is incredibly durable!”
The SICK V300 safety camera is an infra-red based scanner with a camera chip system that detects light reflected from a strip of reflective tape mounted opposite which defines the protected field. The 110° field allows full coverage of an opening up to 1.5m by 1.5m with a field depth of about 10° either side for additional coverage, enabling optimal positioning while still offering protection without blind spots.
The flexible reflective strip is self-adhesive, so can be easily contoured to allow for discontinuities such as steps, cable runs or housings, or even curves and round shapes such as rotary table housings. The protected field no longer has to be rectilinear, as with light curtains, and could facilitate new designs of safety guarding.
Tests have shown that the reflective strip is extremely durable, with endurance trials including a loaded crate pushed over it 10,000 cycles. The strong adhesive will not detach under severe industrial conditions. The V300 camera is smart enough to operate safely by ignoring distinct scratches in the strip while detecting human body parts inserted into the field.
The 20mm resolution is sufficient to detect human intrusion to hand size and the response time of 20 milliseconds provides excellent margins for stopping machinery safely. The V300 is easy to set up once the device is positioned opposite the reflective tape, one press of the teach-in button will make the field operable.
