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Lan Handling

Expert in automating meat, fish and poultry packaging lines

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DINO explains

Nice if we succeed: packing +10.000 meat trays per hour / per line on limited floor space

Lan Handling installs dozens of fully automated packing lines at meat, fish and poultry producers every year. From New Zealand to Scotland. And from Oss to Zaandam. Large projects, with an impact on the entire business. That is why a good intake for new projects is essential. How do we handle it?! Sales Support Engineer Dino Boot explains.

Challenges in a fish, poultry and meat packaging line

The great thing about Lan Handling’s End-of-Line solutions? That they are built with the latest techniques, but that they are robust and simple to use. And we always respond to the challenges of meat, fish and poultry producers. Think of topics such as ease of use, efficiency, flexibility and improving working conditions. You can see that common thread very clearly.

Skin packs, MAP trays and flowpacks

The food and packaging industry is constantly evolving. We certainly notice that. For example, we recently received an upgrade request from a meat processor that had to switch from MAP trays to a more sustainable flowpack variant. It is great to see that with a few relatively simple adjustments to our robot cell, we can quickly convert such a customer to an up-to-date meat packaging line.

Discover our expertise in the meat, fish and poultry industry

Lack of (cold) space

It doesn’t really matter whether we are dealing with a ‘greenfield’ or ‘brownfield’ project. The available space is always a point of discussion. Logical, because space is generally scarce. It’s up to me to show how easy and creative we can deal with this.

Smart use of height difference

In such cases, it is great that we can offer systems with an efficient footprint. And we also like to literally take automation ‘to a higher level’, for example by using a mezzanine. We do this at one of the largest producers of meat substitutes in the Netherlands. In such a case, the core of the process, placing the products in crates, boxes or dollies, remains on the production floor. The supply and/or removal of the product carriers then takes place via a higher level.

Predictable output

Another big advantage of automation is its predictability. Our robotic solutions do not need a break, are never sick and do not go on holiday. And if there is a temporary increased production demand, they work a few extra hours without any problems. As a result, our customers can rely on high continuity and predictable output.

Fast and gentle handling

Capacity is often a hard requirement in the projects we do. In some cases, our case packers must be able to effortlessly process 160 trays per minute in a meat packaging line. Fortunately, we can do that with our standard solutions. Although I think that the challenge lies more in the gentle handling of products, without the capacity suffering from this. We design our solutions in such a way that they are also suitable for accurate product placement, handling of easy peel top film and preservation of product presentation in trays.

Learn more about our case packing solutions

Less workforce

We notice that the availability of (good) production personnel is an increasing challenge for our customers. Especially when it comes to physically demanding and monotonous work. Stacking dozens of full crates or packing hundreds of trays or flowpacks per hour is generally not attractive. Certainly not when you consider that the ambient temperature can be around +1°C in some cases, which is the the fact at Hoogvliet Slagerij, for example.

When we work out new project requests, we can calculate the ROI of our automation relatively easily with the right input. And of course the saving on labor is a large part of this.

Read our project story at Hoogvliet Slagerij

The best thing about designing packaging lines according to Dino?

Despite all the advantages of automation and great solutions that Lan Handling can offer, good cooperation with the customer remains essential. That’s what I like the most about my job, because: ‘The devil is in the detail’.

If I do not properly check the needs and requirements of our customer in advance, the end result does not meet expectations.

And that would of course be a shame if eventually there could also be a hypermodern, fully automated packaging line: for more than 10,000 MAP meat trays per hour / per line, in a space that no one thought would fit!