A leading supermarket has this month bought its twentieth vertical form fill and seal packaging machine from GIC.
Morrisons has ordered a GIC2100 specifically designed to pack IQF frozen sausages at its manufacturing site in Bradford.
The machine, which is capable of packing up to 70 packs per minute, can accommodate bag styles of up to 250mm wide, such as pillow gusseted and block bottom.
GIC, which is based in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, first began working with Morrisons in 2016, when it supplied four GIC8000s to pack potatoes at a rate of 80 packs per minute at the supermarket’s Gadbook site.
Since then GIC has supplied a total of 16 additional machines, including GIC2100, GIC3100 and GIC4100s to Morrisons’ Rushden, Worsley, Grimsby and Flaxby factories.
Morrisons is also one of the latest companies to opt for a GIC angled machine. The machine, a GIC4100A, is specifically designed to pack delicate produce and is currently packing Morrisons’ sweet potatoes.
The angled machine – was installed in July this year, replacing an ageing vertical form fill and seal packaging machine. As the intake chute slopes, the delicate sweet potatoes roll into the packaging, which means damage to the tips and bruising caused by dropping them is eliminated.
Morrisons says the introduction of the new machine to the line, which is one of the most efficient in the factory, has led to a 95% improvement on rejects.
“GIC machines feature extensively in our factories as they are incredibly efficient and reliable,” says Jason Kelly, Head of Operations – Produce. “We have an excellent relationship with GIC, and the level of service and support we receive from them is excellent. The machine handling our sweet potatoes has been particularly successful in reducing damage to the crop. This is really important as we have seen demand for sweet potatoes increase dramatically over the last year.”
Based in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, GIC was established more than 30 years ago and employs 25 people. The company manufactures an extensive range of vertical bagmakers, producing a wide range of finished bag sizes from 150 to 600mm wide, in both intermittent and continuous motion variants. All GIC machines offer low-cost ownership, robustness, reliability and exceptional build quality.
