Thomas Hardy Kendal upgrade end of line

Thomas Hardy Brewing and Packaging has been one of the leading contract packers of beers, ciders, soft drinks and FABs for many years, offering brewing, blending and contract filling for many leading household brands.

The Kendal plant currently packs around 150 SKU’s, filling over 40 different bottle sizes. With demand from customers for still further packaging flexibility, the decision was made to upgrade the end-of-line solution to offer both current and future customers new secondary packaging options.

Peter Armstrong, Director of Thomas Hardy Kendal commented, “Many of our customers were asking us for new packaging solutions and so we have been upgrading the wet end of the line here at Kendal for some time. The original Dimac shrinkwrapper supplied by Aetna UK had packed over 50 million cases for us and had been a brilliant machine, but was ready for an upgrade.

The first part of the project was replacing the old shrink tunnel, but with the additional option of registered or printed film for trays or pads. The second phase was to replace the tray erector and wraparound packer within the format of the line, which included linking in a direct feed from our existing Mead Clusterpak machine.”

David Walkinshaw, Sales Manager at Aetna UK said, “We have had a long association with Thomas Hardy since the company was established. As Co-Packers, the need for high-speed changeovers and flexibility is key to their success and profitability. The improved mechanisms on the Prasmatic TC 500 and Dimac Greenstar F that we installed have definitely facilitated changeovers and helped reduce downtime.”

Peter Armstrong added: “Another issue for us was that Aetna’s new Prasmatic TC 500 was a machine that could accommodate pack sizes as small as 6 x 275ml bottles whilst still being capable of handling 45 packs a minute. Overall this has been a great installation for us and, although we have an excellent technical team, it is always good to know the Aetna UK after sales and service team are there for us.”

Telephone: 01234 825050

www.aetnagroup.co.uk