16 BULKDISTRIBUTOR Industrial Packaging November / December 2021
Plastic pallets help keep pets well-fed
arlier this year , Goplasticpallets . com
E delivered 24,750 plastic pallet boxes to GA Pet Food Partners for use in its £ 80 million Ingredients Kitchen – a new , fully automated dark store warehouse operated solely by robots . The Ingredients Kitchen sees the culmination of science , automation , expertise and testing , as well as storing and blending , come together to deliver fine dry pet food ingredients . The investment ensures that the provenance and traceability of all recipes produced at the facility is guaranteed . GA Pet Food Partners first approached Goplasticpallets . com four years ago looking for a large container suitable for automated handling and storing bulk dry pet food ingredients . After consulting with GA discussing exactly how the containers would be used , Goplasticpallets . com recommended its largest plastic pallet box – the GoPalletBox 1311S 3R measuring 1,300mm x 1,150mm x 1,250mm and offering 1,400 litre storage capacity . After sampling the plastic pallet box , GA ordered 19,750 units in three different colours with lids – red , green and blue each for handling different processes – and have not looked back since . In fact , GA was so pleased with the performance of the boxes it ordered a further 5,000 units for an additional new warehouse . Jim Whittingham , operations director for GA Pet Food Partners , said : “ This investment has seen us work with several highly skilled organisations from
Goplasticpallets . com has supplied 24,750 plastic pallet boxes to GA Pet Food Partners
around the world , Goplasticpallets . com being one of them . From our initial enquiry , right through to our final delivery , the whole Go Plastic team has been extremely helpful and attentive – keeping us updated on the status of all deliveries . Now the boxes are operational , we couldn ’ t be happier with their performance .” The dry bulk ingredients – including rice , wheat and barley – first enters the Ingredients Kitchen at bulk intake where automated sampling takes place . All of the ingredients are fully traceable from source ; none enter the kitchen without 48 hours of testing in GA ’ s on-site labs . In the pantry , storage is managed in a controlled environment . Efficient stock planning and rotation ensures that all ingredients maintain optimum freshness .
The finished containers being taken to the larder for storage
GA has deployed two types of automated guided vehicle ( AGVs ), nicknamed Henry and Arthur , to move ingredients on site . Weighing in at 1.5 tonnes , Henry transports containers to and from the pantry to the pick and mix area travelling at 2m / s . Arthur , at 2.5 tonnes , covers 1.8 m / s transferring containers between the cellar and the station in preparation for extrusion . After passing through extrusion the finished products are taken back to the Ingredients Kitchen on an AGV mule . Once the mule docks , the finished containers are taken to the larder for storage with each containing 650-800kg of pet food ready for packing . It is a highly responsive and controlled environment that can handle around 78 box movements per hour .
www . goplasticpallets . com
Mauser packs ‘ em in
Mauser Packaging Solutions has introduced an IBC solution that features a new composite pallet designed to maximise the volume of IBCs in 20ft shipping containers . The newly designed pallet , modelled after the Mauser composite pallet , features a lower stacking height , improving the loading process and increasing the total number of IBCs shipped per 20ft container by 11 percent - from 18 to 20 units , so saving one container for every 200 IBCs shipped . Traditionally , door height restrictions block the use of two potential IBC spaces near the container opening and require that IBCs are loaded individually and double-stacked once inside the container . The new pallet design accommodates deeper nesting , allowing the shipper to load IBCs stacked two high , improving loading efficiency more than 50 percent , and eliminating the two unused spaces near the container opening .
www . mauserpackaging . com