F CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY
Packaging machines for bespoke products When demand for bread and cake mixes called for new facility, it also posed the challenge of how to package these bespoke products
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.R Wright and Sons became a FAWEMA customer when in 1973, they took delivery of their first automatic bagging machine for flour. What was to become a long and fruitful relationship initially between Ken Wright, (the current Managing Director David Wright’s father) and FAWEMA’s family owners, begun when Petzold & Company, FAWEMA’s UK representatives brought the two enterprises together. This relationship continues today after more than 43 years. Since 1867 Wright’s have established themselves across the UK as millers of the finest quality flours, and throughout this time they have built a strong relationship with FAWEMA with more and more packaging lines added in subsequent years. It was after Wrights had developed what was to become their highly successful range of bread (and later cake) mixes in the 1990s, that David Wright and Production Director Alan Cave naturally came to FAWEMA again in 2014 for specialist high speed packaging equipment. Sales of this revolutionary product range outgrew the current location in the mill, so they decided to invest in a multi-million pound new build at Delta Park, Enfield conveniently located just minutes from the mill. This new facility features a state of the art test bakery, training workshops with a product development team that can be made available to customers, plus of course a packaging department with two new high speed FAWEMA bagging lines that fulfill the latest demands of the UK supermarkets. Until Delta Park was built, these pioneering 500g bags, sized specifically for domestic bread making machines as well as home bakers, had been packed on existing FAWEMA dedicated retail wheat flour packers at the mill. FAWEMA’s decades of experience in designing, building and installing bag packaging lines for difficult products like flour-based 84 | March 2016 - Milling and Grain
mixes with high fat and oil content placed them in the forefront when Wrights were deciding who was going to be awarded this prestigious contract - especially when it came to ensuring extremely consistent weight accuracy, essential for perfect results in the kitchen. The finely balanced recipes include ingredients as diverse as carrot, cheese, onion, garlic, chocolate, ginger, and linseed. To guarantee this high quality, each individual mix must not only have the correct proportion of ingredients consistently and homogeneously mixed, but every bag must have an accurately weighed dose, in this case 500g, which is where FAWEMA’s expertise comes to the fore. If the weight varies too much then the final result can be compromised at home whether hand or machine baked. It is for this reason that FAWEMA specified their industry-leading bulk fill and weight controlled top-up system with continuous monitoring and data recording where you can interrogate every individual weight and specify very close limits and any pack outside these limits will be rejected automatically. The feed system designed for optimum clean down and FAWEMA’s own auger fillers with quick release hoppers, singled out this equipment for rapid product change for an application that includes currently 14 different varieties for bread and 5 for cake. After filling, the packs are retained in pockets throughout the line that includes intensive settling of the mixes, and secure bag closing and gluing thus optimising the final pack appearance for maximum impact at the point of sale. Automatic FAWEMA collating and shrinkwrapping equipment completes each packaging line. Today, FAWEMA’s team of specialists are responsible for delivering up to 50 complete packaging lines a year. The programme encompasses German designed and engineered bag making, filling, closing, collating and wrapping products as diverse as flour, mixes, sugar, oatmeal, pulses, dry and semi-moist pet food, charcoal, building powders, confectionery, tea, potatoes, in fact the list is endless. Pack weights from a few grams up to 25kg and more can be processed at modest rates for those who require an entry-level unit right up to world-leading production speeds of in excess of 100 bags per minute. Machines for pre-made bags and sacks as well as operating from roll stock are FAWEMA’s core business. Secondary packs of collated bundles wrapped in shrink wrap film or Kraft paper are also designed and built in the factory in Engelskirchen, close to Cologne, Germany.