Proseal’s CP3 case packing system brings results for soft fruit specialist
The first Proseal CP3 automatic case packing system to be installed at a customer – Angus Soft Fruits – has now handled over 8 million trays since it started operation a little over a year ago.
The CP3 at Angus Soft Fruits is in fact the initial prototype model, which was developed at the specific request of Ionut Tirziu, the company’s engineering and maintenance manager, who had been unable to find a suitable case packing solution to meet the growing business’s requirements.
“As a longstanding customer of Proseal, I know the company’s outstanding engineering capabilities and I was able to convince them to turn their skills to create a case packing system that would be able to handle trays efficiently and at high speeds,” explained Ionut. “The excellent performance and reliability of this original model shows that my faith was justified.”
As well as the original machine, Angus Soft Fruits has installed a second Proseal CP3, alongside its existing nine Proseal GT2 and one Proseal GT6eX-Twin tray sealing machines.
“Angus Soft Fruits is leading the market with innovation and efficiencies, which is incredibly important in producing and packing berries,” commented Ionut. “Continual packing innovation is essential to deliver the best quality fruit, efficiently packed to extend shelf life.”
The development of the Proseal CP3 in conjunction with Angus Soft Fruits ideally demonstrates the strong working partnership that exists between the two companies. This same partnership also led Proseal to produce what at the time was its fastest GT6 tray sealing machine, capable of sealing around 250 packs per minute. In addition, Angus Soft Fruits was closely involved in the development of Proseal’s ProVision monitoring system that helps to maximise line performance and efficiency.
The range of equipment at Angus’s Salford Priors’ packing house also underlines Proseal’s ability to devise a complete primary and transit packing solution for the soft fruit industry.
As Proseal’s sales director Tony Burgess explained, “We fully understand the many challenges involved in soft fruit packing, particularly its seasonality and therefore the need to maximise throughput, minimise waste and ensure a streamlined operation that gets produce from the field to the retail shelf in the shortest possible time. All our new equipment development work is focused on these requirements.”
For Angus Soft Fruits, the CP3 case packing systems are able to handle the high speeds of the Proseal tray sealing machines. It uses the company’s ProMotion tray infeed system to control the flow of trays and enable them to feed continuously into the machine without stopping, filling cases at up to 120 packs per minute. The CP3 can handle a wide variety of pack formats, including trays and pots in materials such as A-PET, C-PET, and board.
The introduction of Proseal ProVision meanwhile has enabled Angus Soft Fruits to further improve line performance through the capture and analysis of valuable machine data. This allows the company to identify any line inefficiencies and pinpoint factors that may affect productivity in terms of both personnel and operating procedures, meaning remedial action can be quickly taken.
“Both ProVision and the CP3 case packaging systems have had the same major impact on our operations as when we installed our first Proseal tray sealing machines back in 2008,” concluded Ionut.
Proseal is part of the JBT Corporation family, a global technology solutions provider to segments of the food processing industry.
For more information, visit: www.proseal.com
