One of the UK’s leading suppliers of shallots and echalions has this month completed an investment at its Lincolnshire factory ahead of the new season harvest.
As a result of the investment Kitchen Garden Produce, which grows and packs shallots and echalion for supermarkets and retailers across the country, will increase its productivity and efficiency.
The uplift in production capacity has been achieved by introducing two GIC2100 servo vertical form fill and seal packaging machines to the Owmby-by-Spital production line.
As well as being faster, GIC’s machines have been fitted with customised narrow seals to deliver film savings in the future.
Designed with a small footprint (just 930 x 2143mm), the two GIC2100 servos were ideally suited to Kitchen Garden Produce’s current packing line configuration.
“We have a policy of continued reinvestment to ensure that we can meet demand in the most cost-effective way,” says Chris Kitchen, one of the partners of the family-owned firm. “The GIC machines replace two older and slower packaging machines which had become unreliable and inefficient. GIC has an excellent reputation, and as they are just down the road from us, it was easy to arrange to visit them and meet the team. I have to say we were very impressed with what we saw. GIC’s machines are exceptionally well built, the team are vastly experienced and offer a high level of after-sales support. It is very early days, but our expectations have been surpassed so far.”
Kitchen Garden Produce was established by Chris and Ann Kitchen in 1979 on a 22 acre farm. They now grow shallots, echalion and asparagus which are grown, stored, packed and distributed from this base.
“Chris and Ann have a real passion for what they do and have invested heavily over the years,” says Keith Marrow, Applications Manager at GIC. “They were experiencing considerable downtime due to the age of their previous machines and a lack of support from the manufacturer, so they decided to look elsewhere for a new solution. By choosing GIC and our 2100 machines, they have improved performance, future-proofed their business and gained better support going forward.”
Based in Gainsborough, GIC has been designing and manufacturing vertical form fill and seal packaging machines since 1993.
