Wold Top Brewery invests in case packing automation

Packaging Solutions

Wold Top Brewery has recently installed an automatic wrap-around case packing machine from packing and wrapping specialist Atlanta UK. The investment, which replaces a manual case packing and shrink wrap operation at the site, has generated production efficiencies with scope to enable future growth. There are environmental benefits and a positive re-direction of labour resources resulting in reduced exposure to repetitive strain injury.

Using traditional methods to produce high quality beers from its 600 acre farm high on the Yorkshire Wolds, the brewery asked Atlanta UK to provide an automated solution to replace the manual tray and plastic shrink wrap process being used to pack its beer products. Atlanta UK introduced Wold Top to two similar microbreweries producing cardboard case packed product using the Raffaello. Following several project meetings to fully understand requirements, Atlanta UK was able to design a bespoke solution to meet the objectives.

The Atlanta Raffaello machine is ideal for medium levels of production. Automatically collating the loose product into pack format, then forming and gluing the carton around the product from a flat blank. The Wold Top solution included an infeed accumulation conveyor to receive and buffer product from the production line. Further new conveyors to the outfeed completed the full solution.

As a result, Wold Top also accrued some key environmental benefits, including no plastic use, improved recyclability of material and greatly reduced energy in their packing operation.

‘Installation of the Raffaello system was a very smooth process and the complete solution was commissioned on time. I can’t fault Atlanta UK for its service and support – the team provide a knowledgeable single point of contact and look for solutions, rather than focus on installing just a machine,’ said Alex Balchin, director at Wold Top Brewery. ‘The equipment not only helps improve efficiencies, it has also made us move away from our previous process to complete carton board units, which is definitely a plus from a sustainability point of view.’

Atlanta UK’s Roger Cope added, ‘Wold Top Brewery was using an old method of fulfilment that was inefficient and restrictive to growth. The right thing to do was to automate the process and at the same time, move to a full cardboard carton. We took time to review a number of layout solutions which involved re-working conveyors and retaining the option of the existing shrink wrap facility before we settled on a complete solution based around our Atlanta Raffaello case packing machine.’