The single control system and a simple ‘plug and go’ connection between the weigher and bagger on PFM’s ZC1 combination machine has helped a snack food contract packing venture get under way in less than ten days.
Processed Snack Products at Widnes set out to expand its business at the end of last year with a contract packing venture and quickly secured its first major order.
“The customer had a particularly tight deadline,” explains Peter Fletcher, operations director at Processed Snack Products. “We were aware of a stock ZC1 machine at PFM, but it had to be here and running within ten days.”
“The ZC1 is compact, very straightforward and our own engineers were able to assemble the machine, plug everything together and get it up and running before PFM’s engineer came to complete the commissioning,” explains Peter Fletcher.
Currently the machine is producing 80g bags of various snacks such as corn puffs, cheese balls and onion rings in print registered film at speeds around 35 a minute.
This was achieved with training and product settings made at PFM’s UK headquarters in Leeds, before the bagger and weigher were delivered to Processed Snack Products. A new forming tube to suit the pack size was also built by PFM within a week.