Since 1999 Corsham has operated as a Waitrose dedicated site and, now part of Dalehead Foods following the purchase of the Hygrade group of businesses by Tulip, the site continues to supply Waitrose with sliced cooked meats and joints of ham, turkey, chicken, pork and beef.
Jon Higgs is the Factory Manager at the Corsham site and recognised that a new injector would play an integral part of the company’s plans to double production of its range of beef and poultry products over the next five years. Jon comments – “we knew that our existing injector was not capable of doing what was required so we spoke to a number of injector manufacturers to see what would best suit our needs. We have a very good working relationship with Interfood and had spoken to Jon Winnan, our Bacon Unit Manager at our Bury St Edmunds site, who was very pleased with the performance of a Schroeder IMAX injector supplied by Interfood a few months ago. That is one of the benefits of being part of a large group like Tulip – we can learn from the experiences of our colleagues and find out how machines have coped with different challenges.”
As part of the evaluation process, Jon visited the Schroeder manufacturing and test kitchens facility in Germany to see the quality of manufacture at the heart of Schroeder’s operation. Colin Brain, Production Manager and Mark Williams, Product Development Manager at the Corsham site, also visited German food processing facilities to see how the IMAX was able to cope under the pressure of an actual working environment.
All agreed that the IMAX represented the best option for them. Jon continues – “We were able to spec the machine to our specific requirements. It is quicker, more reliable, and offers better consistency of brine distribution throughout the product. Hygiene is also very important to us and we were impressed by how easy the injector is to strip down prior to cleaning. Everything seems to have been thought of in terms of how the injector has been designed.”
The IMAX range of injectors can be integrated into existing product lines with an almost infinite variety of options with food safety and hygiene of primary importance and ease of cleaning and sanitation engineered into all phases of the equipment. Digital control of all curing and processing data is achieved through the ‘MMI operator-machine interface’ touch screen, with the machine’s low pressure process minimising muscle damage and improving the quality of the end product.
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