Engineered Solutions for the Food Packaging Industry

PPM Technologies LLC is a market leader in the global food processing and packaging industry.

With close to 100 years of experience and continued release of innovative products, PPM Technologies enhances the performance of food processing lines. From snack foods to meat, seafood and poultry, this company provides advanced technologies to global food processors.

Talking to Managing Director Trevor Howard reveals that the company has had a somewhat chequered history until about twelve months ago. Starting in Sweden as Potato Processing Machinery AB, the Company was bought first by Frigoscandia in 1991and then by FMC in 1997. Allen Machinery joined the business in 2000 and finally PPM Technologies Inc was created by a management buyout from FMC in 2007.

In 2008 PPM Technologies Inc purchased Wright Machinery Ltd before going under a year later, partly due to a slowdown in the capital equipment purchases by a major global snack food manufacturer and partly due to an over extension of their cash flow.

Out of this, in 2010 PPM Technologies LLC was formed in the USA and they purchased the Intellectual property of Wright Machinery Ltd.

Today, Trevor heads up PPM Technologies EMEA Ltd, a subsidiary of the US LLC business, which basically covers one side of the World, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia down to the Pacific Rim, while the American Head office handles the American continent and Japan and has a speciality manufacturing site on Oregon USA.

As Trevor explains, “In the UK, we have only 14 people, taking care of design, project management, servicing and sales and aftermarket. We sub-contract all of the manufacture and then do the final testing ourselves. Following the acquisition of the intellectual property of Wright Machinery in May 2010, we also handle the continued design and manufacture of this range. We also hold the intellectual property of FMC, PPM Technologies Inc and Allen Machinery, making us the global solutions provider for and form of food handling.

We deal with all major frozen food manufacturers on the fruit and vegetable side as well as out core business of equipment to major players in the snack food industry. When I look back at just what we have achieved since May 2010, I have to be proud of the fact that we have already achieved a turnover of about $15 million from nothing.”

As the industry has seen the rebirth of the company, more and more of the former customers are coming back to PPM, to such an extent that there is now a backlog of work. A great deal of effort is being put into the aftermarket, in terms of spare parts and servicing, which the Company sees as the ‘bread and butter’ business. The customer confidence is growing not just in the UK but throughout PPM Ltd’s sphere of operation, the range of legacy brands they have to offer is unsurpassed in the industry, names such as Allen, Aseeco, PPM, FMC and of course Wright.

As a result, PPM has taken on a further six full-time specialists working all over the World. Looking at the hardware, PPM now has five sub-contract manufacturing sites in the UK with a further one in Sweden.

Returning to Trevor, “The food industry has changed a great deal over the last 10 years. However, our increasing experience in high quality food processing means that we can increasingly look to new markets such as pharmaceuticals. We are already doing some work on handling and packaging pills and powders. Over the next few months, we are hoping to centralise all our EMEA operations on one site which will incorporate our stores a final product testing under one roof. We can offer a wide range of experience in processing lines for products as diverse as potato chip and snack pellet lines, through to fresh fruit and vegetables and seafood. The future is definitely looking much more positive than it was just 18 months ago.

The name PPM stand for Processing & Packaging Machinery, that’s what we do best”

For further information please telephone 01 494 682800 or visit www.ppmtech.com.