Food & Beverage Asia April/May 2022

PROCESSING AND PACKAGING 49
What once started as a municipal
slaughterhouse in the centre of Apeldoorn is
now an ultramodern production company that
processes approximately 400,000 calves into
meat products every year, which are mainly
distributed in Germany, France and Italy. Ekro
supplies veal products that are tailored to its
customers, such as whole veal breast or veal
roulade for the catering industry, as well as
consumer products like veal burgers or steaks.
The company recognises animal welfare,
food safety and sustainability of utmost
importance, and works towards meeting the
requirements of chefs and consumers.
FULL TRACEABILITY
Ekro works with traditional wholesalers,
retailers, foodservice and food manufacturers.
Orders range from the delivery of
complete carcasses to the delivery of
kitchen-ready consumer products.
The SEALPAC thermoformers are packaging veal products in two shifts per day
Christian Scholten, project manager ai at
Ekro, shared: “What makes Ekro unique is
the quality we deliver. Our company is part
of a complete chain, from the feeding of
the calves to the packaged end product.
In addition, Ekro has been committed
to traceability for several decades.
“The abattoir and deboning section are
equipped with high-tech hardware and
software, which connect seamlessly to each
other so that full tracking and tracing of the
products is guaranteed. For example, the
customers of Ekro, primarily the wholesaler,
can always enter the stated barcode for
each product on a special website to view
the complete life cycle of the meat.”
IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK
Anjo Kaatman, head of technical service
at Ekro, is responsible for the company’s
existing machinery. Within the company’s
project office, Scholten and four other
colleagues, are constantly working on renewal
processes. Both men worked together in a
large investment project in the packaging
department of Ekro to modernise several
existing lines to work even more efficiently.
For example, the thermoformer has been used
since 1999 for packaging the by-products,
especially organs. This machine, an RE3, was
once purchased from the company Repak in
Christian Scholten, project manager ai at Ekro, between two SEALPAC RE25 thermoformers
Emmen and has been running 16 hours a day
since 1999, with cleaning taking place every
evening and maintenance done twice a year.
“The RE3 has always functioned without
problems in our challenging production
environment until the end of 2021,” revealed
Kaatman.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD
MAINTENANCE
The RE-series thermoformers are still built
in Emmen, but since 2007 they have been
offered in the Benelux under the brand name
SEALPAC. The advice, sales and maintenance
are done by Ultrapak in Nijkerk, the distributor
for SEALPAC thermoformers and traysealers
in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Kaatman said: “We have had an exceptionally
good relationship with Ultrapak from the start.
They take their responsibility and meet the
set deadlines, also about the agreed service
contracts. Installation of new machines, but
also the maintenance of existing machines,
must take place with us during the weekend.
The requirement is then that the machines
have to be running again on Monday morning,
and that has always been successful so far.”
With the RE3 in use for more than 20 years and
several other lines that could use a facelift,
the inevitable question of replacement came
in 2020. To this end, a large project started
within Ekro, where distinct options were
examined. Revision of the existing machines
was still a possibility, but replacement offered
FOOD & BEVERAGE ASIA APRIL / MAY 2022