New Demo Area Highlights Ishida's Snack Capabilities
Ishida Europe has invested in excess of £1 million in a dedicated Snacks Demonstration area at its UK manufacturing headquarters in Woodgate, Birmingham.
Ishida Europe has invested in excess of £1 million in a dedicated Snacks Demonstration area at its UK manufacturing headquarters in Woodgate, Birmingham. The new facility was unveiled during a series of customer days held in November and December to highlight the company’s wide range of solutions for snacks packing.
Well over 100 customers from 35 snack food companies from UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia attended these events where Ishida demonstrated some of its latest innovations in weighing, inspection and quality control. A major highlight saw the confirmation of an order from leading Scottish crisp manufacturer Mackie’s at Taypack for an Ishida Atlas iTPS (integrated Total Packaging System), while the event also generated a number of very positive enquiries for new snacks packaging equipment.
The Snacks Demonstration area features a full range of Ishida equipment from entry-level models to state-of-the-art high speed systems. The variety of models on show underlines Ishida’s ability to tailor a solution to the precise needs of individual customers and applications. Customers will also be able to test their products on the various systems.
Demonstrations during the customer days included Ishida’s newly-launched enhancement to its market-leading Atlas range of snack food bagmakers. The new Ishida Charge Transfer Control (CTC) system has increased the already-high speeds on potato chips by a further 35% to in excess of 150 bags per minute on a single packaging machine, and typically 130 bags per minute per side using a twin Atlas bagmaker system.
There was also a preview of Ishida’s First Range, an entry-level weigher/bagmaker combination which offers an economic, medium speed solution, delivering fast payback on a reduced investment cost while ensuring consistent weights, pack quality and seal integrity.
Another newly-launched machine was a specially-developed salt stick packing system, allowing producers of stick shaped snack products to maximise handling efficiency and packing speed, while minimising product breakage.
In addition, Ishida demonstrated its recently-introduced top-of-the range multihead weigher. The CCW-RV delivers the highest levels of accuracy of any weigher and, in addition to consistent weighing at close-to-zero giveaway, is now some 15% faster than its predecessor.
As well as its wide range of multihead weigher and bagmaker combinations, Ishida offers X-ray detection systems, checkweighers and seal testers for enhanced quality control. In addition, its SPA Strip-Pack-Applicator range produces ready-to display strips of bagged products to provide an attractive hanging display for retailers.
The new Snacks Demonstration area is part of an ongoing investment at Ishida Europe, whose parent company in Japan celebrated its 120th anniversary in 2013. The investment includes the opening of new offices for Ishida Europe’s commercial departments, next to its existing factory, which will enable the company to further expand its manufacturing operations.
“We are very proud of the new Snacks Demonstration area and customer reaction during our open days has been extremely positive,” comments Simon Ruffley, Business Manager - Snacks Packaging Systems of Ishida Europe.
“This new facility provides not only the chance for ‘hands on’ demonstrations, but it is also the ideal ‘try before you buy’ opportunity for our customers. Equally important, this type of face-to-face discussion enables us to keep track of the snacks market, its current challenges and future requirements, which is vital to our ongoing new product development work.”
Source: Ishida Europe