New Fillers for Del Monte.
They are being used for the two new pack types that El Monte has chosen - the 1 litre Tetra Brik Aseptic Square SpinCap carton, and the Tetra Brik Aseptic 200 Mid portion pack.
In fact, Del Monte were the first company in the UK to adopt the premium TBA Square SpinCap carton for the launch of a range of premium juices in February. The principal advantages of this new one litre carton is tamper-evidence, resealability and easy-opening in a single movement.
To produce this new carton, a new TBA/8 filling machine has been installed. The exterior of this machine is made entirely from stainless steel, which makes cleaning easy and efficient. All moving parts are enclosed, which contributes to a safer working place and a lower noise level.
Such machines are controlled by a PLC system which is fitted with a control panel that is easy for an operator to use. No PullTab is required, thereby reducing the number of operations within the filling machine. The SpinCap is applied by a downstream cap applicator, the Tetra Cap Applicator 88, in which caps are bulk fed and applied by hot-melt.
A new 7500 packs-an-hour TBA/19 filling machine has been commissioned for producing the new TBA 200 Mid carton. The main benefit of this new carton are its extra height, giving it the same overall height as the TBA 250 Baseline cartons but with a smaller footprint.
Del Monte have adopted this new format for the De L'Ora brand that they acquired, together with Just Juice, from RHM earlier this year.
Mission Foods to Expand in UK US-based Mission Foods, who claim world leadership in the manufacture of tortillas, tortilla chips and related Mexican foods, are to expand into the UK and European grocery and foodservice markets.
Mission are part of the Mexican company, Grupo Maseca and they have sixteen manufacturing plants in the USA.
They are to invest some [pounds]16m. in a production facility in Coventry to ensure they secure 25% of the European flour tortilla sales by the year 2005, together with a substantial portion of the tortilla chip market. The new 65,000sq ft Coventry plant will manufacture both flour tortillas and tortilla chips for the UK market as well as for European countries. It will be capable of producing 80 million bags of tortilla chips a year and up to a million flour tortilllas a day.
Nick Houghton is managing director of Mission Foods Europe.
