MSP Issue 27

CASE STUDY
Easy product loading due to the large loading zone of the SEALPAC PRO10 thermoformer.
екая арука продуктов лаодаря оло оне аруки тероорера SL .
Initially a small company of just
family members, Blancafort today
has 80 employees and a production
volume of 15,000 tons per year.
Only one decade ago, this was 20
employees and 1,500 tons per year.
At the Granollers production site,
Mr. Francesc X. Alcántara is since
recently responsible for operations.
As he explains: “It is my task to
assist the CEO in optimizing the
factory from an organizational and
efficiency point of view. Off course
this also applies to the packaging
activities at Blancafort Foods.”
PIONEER IN PACKAGING
As a result of the rapid growth of the
company in the past decade, several
investments in processing and
packaging equipment were made. In
2011, Blancafort Foods purchased
a SEALPAC RE20 thermoformer for
packaging large blocks of bacon.
This thermoformer was supplied by
EMO S.A., distributor in Spain and
Portugal for SEALPAC traysealers
and thermoformers. When in
2015 a solution was needed for
the packaging of sliced bacon, a
SEALPAC machine was the obvious
choice again. At that time, SEALPAC
had just introduced a new range
of thermoformers, the so-called
PRO-series. These PRO-series
thermoformers are characterized
by their extremely small footprint,
hence requiring minimum space in
the production area. Nevertheless,
they also have an extremely large
loading zone.
Being a pioneer in its own field,
Blancafort had no doubt whether
to invest in this new type of
thermoformer. Alcántara: “The
excellent performance and low
maintenance requirement of the
SEALPAC RE20 gave us a lot of
confidence to buy the additional
PRO10 thermoformer. Less than
1% of all the machine stops had
been related to technical issues.
In my experience, at least 50% of
the decision to invest in a specific
brand of equipment should be
based on technical experiences,
which is why we always appoint
engineers in our decision making
32 | MSP Magazine • August/September 2017