50th Bro V2 18-11

1970s
1970s
Throughout the 1970s Packaging Automation
continued to gain interest from many more food
manufacturers for an assortment of special
purpose food automation projects including
Manor Bakeries for a jam tart loading machine,
Bassetts for packing individual containers of
dolly mixtures, Chef in the Box for outside
catering, RF Brookes for sausage rolls for M&S.
Other customer names included Cadburys, Unigate,
Birds Eye, Rowntrees, Mars, Fryers, T Walls,
Gunstones, United Biscuits, OP Chocolate, Kraft,
Ross Poultry, Batchelors and KP Nuts.
During one of Anthony’s visits to Cadbury in
Bournville an innovative engineer there, Albert
Chetwood, asked why he couldn’t have a rotating
table machine instead of the sliding table on
the PA102 that was in use in the factory. The
challenge was set and in 1976 a rotary table
version of the PA102 was produced called the
PA178. The Cadbury’s machine sealed the blister
packed Christmas stocking selection.
Golden Wonder had called PA for help
packing their new product the Pot Noodle,
a revolutionary concept offering freeze
dried noodles that could be conveniently
turned into a meal with the addition of
hot water. Golden Wonder took twelve
PA182s on hire from Packaging Automation,
initially for a 12 month period to see if
the Pot Noodle would be popular with the
UK consumer. It was so successful they
kept the machines and eventually asked PA
to design an automatic machine with higher
speeds. Hire became a critical part of
the PA business from that point on,
allowing food manufacturers the opportunity
to launch and test new products with
low risk.
The PA178 is still a current
hire model 37 years later.
The PA178 was
subsequently
developed following
a request from Golden
Wonder in 1977 to include
an automatic film feed to
allow reels of film to be
sealed to packs becoming
the PA182.
A variation on
the PA178 was
developed for
Warburtons
to pack
gingerbread
men in shaped
packs with a
card base.