FDBusiness.com

The final phase has commenced of Project Vision – Milk Link’s four year programme to transform its Oswestry production facility into one of the UK’s foremost cheese cutting and packing plants. The last stage of the project, entailing a further £2 million investment, has seen the installation of an additional advanced high speed, fully automated, cutting and flow wrapping line.

The line uses the latest laser scanning technology to minimise offcuts and giveaway and is delivering significantly improved packing rates. This will be complemented by the installation in the early summer of a further high speed, intelligent cutting line. This more compact unit has been developed to maximise the performance from smaller run lengths.

In addition, work will also shortly commence on the automatic palletisation of all of Oswestry’s cheese portions and slices product lines. The new robotic equipment will be installed and commissioned by the end of April, delivering further efficiencies and faster run rates.

Carl Ravenhall, managing director of Milk Link Cheese, comments: “Project Vision has transformed Oswestry, increasing its capacity and capabilities and is enabling Milk Link to respond to growing customer demand for our cheese. The investment is fully in line with our strategy of implementing fast returning capital projects and will deliver a range of benefits including consistent quality and service for our customers, improved yields and reduced wastage.”