Robotic depositors give speed and quality finish

Turbo Systems depositors installed on fully robotic production lines have increased throughput at ready meals producer Kettleby Foods, producing a very high quality of finish at the same time

Turbo Systems depositors installed on fully robotic production lines have increased throughput at ready meals producer Kettleby Foods.

Kettleby Foods, of Melton Mowbray, manufactures recipe dishes, such as Cottage Pie, Lancashire Hotpot and Beef Stew and Dumplings.

All the products use fresh meat and vegetables to produce an exciting range of quality ready meals and the company is also a leader in the healthy living category.

The company has to fulfil high quality expectations, so has to manage the production process to ensure that standards are maintained and, in many cases, exceeded.

Kettleby also has to routinely meet strict delivery deadlines and in such a fast moving market, the time between orders being received and delivery is very short.

Therefore, it is essential that it specifies the right equipment that enables it to strike the perfect balance between speed, reliability and flexibility, with the scope to add value to selected products to meet premium brand requirements of decoration and product finishing.

Kettleby uses the Turbo Systems servo-driven depositors and 3-axis robotic arms for filling and finishing its Shepherd's Pies containing mince protein in a sauce base.

They are topped with patterned piped mashed potato over the base product via the three-across servo depositors each connected to three nozzles mounted on a robotic beam.

The beam and nozzles operate to a configured pattern using a PLC control system.

The engineering manager at Kettleby Foods, Chris Savidge, commented: "We run up to 40 different products in an average day across all production lines, so change-overs need to be frequent and rapid.

We have been working with Turbo Systems and their company's products for eight years and in this time, Turbo have supported us through the phenomenal growth we have experienced".

He added that a number of Turbo depositing systems are also used on Kettleby craft lines for higher premium products where a degree of hand finishing is required.

But, as Mr Savidge explained: "The very high quality of finish we achieve on all our automated lines really makes the product very appealing.

Turbo have designed their systems in such a way that products coming through that line have a fine degree of finishing that gives the foods a home-cooked look about them".

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