Volumetric Depositors help specialist frozen meal manufacturer meet increased demand
Two Low Mount mobile depositing machines installed by Weightron Bilanciai are playing a vital role at Classic Cuisine’s purpose-built factory in Northampton, helping the company meet the rapidly growing demand for its mouth-watering array of products. Established in 1990, Classic Cuisine is one of the UK’s leading independent specialist suppliers of award winning high quality frozen gourmet meal solutions to outlets including restaurants, hotel and pub groups, supermarkets and motorway service stations.
Classic Cuisine’s MD Lawrence Hunt, who spent 15 years as a chef at some of the country’s top restaurants and hotels, is passionate about his company’s products and as he expounds: “We produce outstanding, innovative dishes, which deliver real benefits to our customers. We firmly believe these offer some of the best meals to be had at any pub or restaurant table in England. Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables en-croute and Beef Wellington wrapped in Parma ham, mushrooms and pâté are just two of the tempting delicacies on offer.”
The Weightron Bilanciai machines are used for a variety of processes including sauce deposition, filling boilable sauce pouches and piping mashed potato. Fill speed and accuracy is of paramount importance, especially given that Classic Cuisine currently produce upwards of 100,000 single meal units per week. Depending on the requirement, the depositors are capable of handling delicate or fragile vegetables and cooked meats suspended in sauce, accommodating particulates up to 30 mm cubed.
The mobile nature of the Low Mount units offers optimum versatility and flexibility in both the Hi-care and Lo-care areas of the factory, allowing production to readily accommodate changing product run requirements. Rather than having fixed fill positions, the filling nozzles are fitted to flexible pipes and this provides much broader filling scope. Versatility is further helped by the easy-clean design of the depositors, which in turn plays its part in ensuring Classic Cuisine maintains its exceptional cleanliness and hygiene routines in line with their EFSIS (European Food Safety Inspection Service) accreditation.
Classic Cuisine are delighted with the machines and as Lawrence Hunt concludes: “We pride ourselves in being highly innovative and flexible in our approach to customers and it is very encouraging when suppliers such as Weightron support us by showing similar innovation and attention to detail. The depositors have enabled us to automate key operations, which had previously been done manually, thereby streamlining our operation.”
