News

Cheese packer Tom Walker & Sons has invested around £100,000 to increase its flow-wrapping capacity with the acquisition of a new PFM Tornado inverted web machine, fitted with PFM's LVA system to handle random length product.

The machine, which is equipped for modified atmosphere packaging, was selected following nine months in which the Tom Walker factory operated a similar PFM Tornado belonging to The Wensleydale Creamery, whose fire-damaged plant in North Yorkshire was under repair last year.

Mike Walker, operations director, said: "We were very impressed with the machine's speed and flexibility as well as its economic use of CO2, which was half that of the older machine it has now replaced. Ease of operation was a great attribute and our operators were very impressed with it.

"Consequently, when the Tornado machine went back to Wensleydale, we felt there was no contest when we decided to order a new machine for ourselves."

Tom Walker & Sons is currently using its PFM Tornado for cheese portions of 125-300g in block, wedge and semi-wedge format at speeds up to 80 packs a minute.