Customer Requirements
Patak’s Foods Ltd. of Leigh, Lancashire in the United Kingdom is a world leader in the production of Indian food. With more than 300 employees, products are distributed internationally to more than 40 countries.
The Leigh plant was a significant investment in state of the art food processing facilities which, at 164,000 sq. ft/ 50,000 sq. m, is believed to be the world’s largest Indian food plant. There was a need to improve the transfer of goods from storage to the processing area.
- The plant uses 2,700 tons of spices from around the world.
- Together with other ingredients, they produce over 1 million snacks and over 1.5 million ready-made meals and 30 million jars of sauce a year.
- To achieve this, they are currently working 24/7.
To keep up with demand there was a need to improve the transfer of goods from storage to the processing area.
Spiroflow Solution
A Spiroflow Aero Mechanical Conveyor (AMC) was the natural choice for Patak’s Foods when they needed a conveyor to upgrade and expand their ingredients handling systems.
Projects Manager, Ray Brown, confirms: “We did our homework and concluded that an Aero Mechanical Conveyor was what we needed. We talked to several suppliers and chose Spiroflow because they offered us the best deal. We are very satisfied with the performance of the equipment and the support we got from Spiroflow.”
- The 10’/ 3m long Spiroflow AMC is used to transfer a host of ingredients from the warehouse, through a wall and into wheeled bins in the cookhouse.
- These ingredients range from coconut milk powder to dried onions. Ingredients were manually emptied from bags into boxes.
- Over 100 bags of ingredients are emptied into the conveyor each day.
- It is constructed of stainless steel and is complete with interlocked, quick-release hatches to the sprocket housings, which allow for easy cleaning.
- The conveyor has an integral feed hopper with vibrating air pad to promote the flow of ingredients into the conveyor.
- The top of the hopper has a shelf and mesh grill to enable bags of material to be opened and tipped with ease.
The conveyor is cost effective and capable of self-emptying to ensure that everything emptied into the inlet comes out the other end. This is an essential attribute when making up accurate batches of ingredients to guarantee the flavor and quality for which Patak’s are renowned.
