Marco help The Co-operative Farms achieve ‘perfectly packaged punnets’
“The Longforgan plant is a welcome addition to our extensive operations
in Scotland. We recognised that the efficiency of the punnet packing
process would be vital to the operation, and so spent considerable time
evaluating different options and suppliers, including site visits around
the country, before choosing the Marco Solution.”
Rob Hull - Co-operative Farms’ Head of Vegetable Operations
Specialist packaging equipment supplied by packhouse profitability
experts Marco is playing a vital role at The Co-operative Group’s newly
commissioned strawberry-packing plant at Longforgan, near Dundee.
The scope of supply included Marco’s Trac-IT data management system,
LineMaster checkweighers, in-feed and out-feed conveyor systems, high
speed twin top labelling machine and end of line packaging equipment.
The new plant represents a total investment of more than £2 million and
has been specifically built to pack local “Grown by Us” strawberries from
the Group’s own farm at Blairgowrie. The new Longforgan plant has a
seasonal throughput capacity of around 800 tonnes, equating to over
3 million punnets.
With each gram of giveaway per punnet at Longforgan representing a loss in profit equating to around 3000 kg of fruit in a season, the manual packing of strawberries requires a fine balance of operator speed and accuracy. Marco have extensive experience in the design of packhouse solutions and have developed innovative technologies to optimise yield control and ensure line control labelling parameters are strictly adhered to. By constantly monitoring each and every pack weight, the Marco system can fine tune settings to consistently maintain pack target weights within fractions of a gram.
Rob Hull is delighted with the overall performance of the packing system: “This investment will help us to ensure we can get fresh strawberries, grown on our own farm, into our shops and on to our customers as efficiently as possible.”
