PACKAGING machinery manufacturer, GIC, is celebrating supplying its 25th vertical form fill and seal (VFFS) machine to the UK potato grower Greenvale.
Greenvale, which grows more than 25,000 tonnes of potatoes each year, took delivery of a GIC8000 VFFS machine at its Floods Ferry site in October, where it will be used to pack fresh small potatoes at high speed in finished packs up to 1kg.
GIC first worked with Greenvale in June 2001, when the company decided to automate the packing of baby potatoes using a VFB2000 machine.
The project, which saw the installation of two GIC VFB4000’s, trebled Greenvale’s packing capabilities at its Floods Ferry site, increasing it from 15 to 45 packs per minute per machine for its 1.5kg, 2.5kg and 5kg packs. The efficiency improvements prompted Greenvale to become the first potato supplier in the UK to automate the packing of maincrop potatoes.
As well as throughput, GIC’s machines enabled Greenvale to apply more detailed date coding to its packs, a previously slow, labour-intensive process.
The new VFFS machine replaces an older obsolete bagger supplied by another company, which, given the significant increase in volume needed between now and Christmas, could not be relied upon.
GIC Managing Director Andy Beal said: “The GIC8000 is a high-speed constant motion servo machine that can produce finished pack widths up to 400mm at a rate of up to 110 packs per minute. Our latest version of the GIC8000 features a hinged maintenance panel, which provides easy access to the machine’s internal mechanism and drives for servicing, so it is ideally suited to Greenvale’s requirements.”
Greenvale’s Engineering Manager, Adrian Dickson, said: “As we have recently been awarded several new contracts and will see our throughput double between now and Christmas, we needed to upgrade the line to ensure that we had the capacity and reliability needed to meet demand.”
Established in the 1970s, Greenvale supplies potatoes to the UK’s retail, foodservice, wholesale and processing sectors. The company employs a team of over 370 people at two strategically located sites, which operate 364 days a year. In addition to its own growing operation, Greenvale collaborates with more than 200 UK potato growers.
