Project Profile: Snack firm bags big savings with Ishida buy

Who Snacks Unlimited
Aim Expand to bring work in-house
Spend Around £750,000
What Ishida iTPS multihead weigher and Atlas bag maker
When January 2009
Targets Bring production in house

Challenge
Growing interest in healthy living and dieting has boosted sales of reduced-fat products across the board, a trend that has not gone unnoticed by the £3bn UK bagged snack food market. North London snack manufacturer Snacks Unlimited produces a wide range of low-fat snack foods for retailer own-brand labels and also counts the well-known Weight Watchers brand as one of its most important customers.

“A large proportion of our production is under licence with Weight Watchers,” says Snacks Unlimited operations director Peter Dolton. “Previously we were outsourcing that work, which reduced our margins, and so we took the decision to invest in our plant to raise capacity, which would allow us to bring the work in-house.”

Strategy
Snacks Unlimited had the opportunity to move into another factory on its site in Park Royal. At the same time as that move was taking place, it looked at the equipment it needed to pack tortilla chips and cheese puffs in-house. “There was a space issue in the new factory and so we went with the Ishida single-tube high-speed machine to save factory space and reduce the cost of a product distribution system,” says Dolton.

He confesses to being a longstanding fan of Ishida equipment, whose multihead weighers are extensively used throughout the snack foods sector. But, he says, the decision to go with Ishida for this particular job was nonetheless preceded by a rigorous selection process that included comparing the multihead weigher and bag maker with a competitor. Following the tests, he says, there was “absolutely no contest” about which machine to buy. “The Ishida was able to deliver the very fast speeds we needed, and, just as significantly, could achieve those speeds without compromising accuracy,” says Dolton.

Implementation
The integration of the Ishida R series multi-head weigher and Atlas bag maker provides a seamless packing operation for the tortilla chips and cheese puffs. The set-up also includes an Ishida throat metal detector and thermal transfer coder and is operated by a remote control unit. Dolton says Ishida supported the firm throughout the installation process and the high level of service impressed him.

“Ishida’s after-sales service is excellent and includes the training of the staff and full maintenance support,” he adds. The bag maker has a double rotary jaw motion and control technology to help save raw materials, minimise film loss and reduce the downtime to change rolls of film. An automatic film-splicing unit reduces product changeover times by 10%. As part of the operation, there is a sealing unit to create tight seals without wrinkles even when the machines are being operated at high speeds, while the bag maker removes any remaining product from the seal area and stops it from being blown upwards.

Results
Bringing product that was previously outsourced in-house made the efficiency of the machine a key issue and Dolton says the equipment is currently being used to weigh cheese puffs and tortilla chips into 18g bags with a minimal loss of product.

He says it can process 160 bags of cheese puffs a minute, slightly faster than is possible to achieve accurate bag weights for the heavier tortilla chips. Nonetheless, the machine is comfortably dealing with all of the snacks that are being processed. A 24-hour five-day production schedule delivers an average output of 70,000 packs a shift in an “efficient and seamless” operation. “The fundamental requirements for our packing operation are speed and accuracy. That’s what Ishida delivered,” says Dolton.

Popular Articles