Baarda raises efficiency.

John Baarda has reduced its product giveaway for on the vine tomato packs after installing a checkweighing installation designed by Avery Weigh-Tronix. In the past, Baarda always sold by minimum weight. Now the fresh produce grower has opened the UK's largest year round tomato growing facility in Billingham, England. When it is fully operational it will produce about 10,000 vines a year which will grow about 7,000 tonnes of tomatoes to be supplied to supermarkets around the UK, including Sainsbury's. With the new system, punnets are placed on a conveyor and sent over a dynamic checkweigher, an Avery Weigh-Tronix Checkpoint M. If they are within the tolerance, they are sent to the wrapper and then to a second checkweigher which keeps the average weight records. If they are outside the tolerance, they are shunted off to a second packing line. There, the operator places the punnet onto a manual checkweigher with an E1210 indicator and adjusts the contents to within an acceptable level. The operator then places the pack back on the conveyor, where it goes to the wrapper and final dynamic checkweigher. The second checkweigher also continuously communicates back to the manual checkweighers the weighing trends and automatically adjusts the band on the manual machines. This ensures minimum product giveaway. In addition to the savings associated with reduced giveaway, Baarda has found that they can monitor the overall line performance and output. This readily available information would not have been collected from a manual system and the company is currently evaluating the new data to optimise their line system and minimise double handling, if possible.

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