Blakemans’ Cooking Plant Investments
Blakemans have long been renowned for their re-investment into the business, with developments and improvements coming through year on year. Lately, their attentions have been on their cooking facilities, known as Blakemans Services.
2022 saw the instillation of two new inline ovens in the well-established cooking plant. One replaced an older model with the other being an additional unit. These instillations brought an increase in cooked production volumes by 50% but they didn’t stop there…
The family-owned company, began work on another extension to the factory in January of 2023, their 70th anniversary in business. Having completed the extension in just 5 months, it was up and running, ready to service the cooked side of the business.
Marketing Manager Anna Birks said:
“Blakemans is as renowned for the quality and consistency of their products as they are for their continual reinvestment back into the business, from building extensions to investments in machinery and their people. We had reached a stage where customer demand was ever growing but our production capacity was not. The new extension has increased capacity, guaranteeing continuity of supply for our customers going forward.”
Kevin Moller, Operations Director for Services said;
“Initially we expect to move 115 tonnes a week of production into the new area, with the space and equipment to allow for potential future growth of up to 160 tonnes per week.”
With that complete, the team went on to install a new effluent tank to stop any fats or oils from entering the local water system, improving their environmental impact significantly.
In-keeping with their ethos of continual improvements, they are all set to start out on an overhaul of another of their departments. Having completed rigorous trials on new systems the newly signed off project, due to commence in 2024, will bring some huge benefits to their frozen packing lines.
Head of Projects, Brian Littleton said;
“The new systems will revolutionise the department, completely changing the way we pack our jumbo sausages whilst streamlining the process and increasing efficiency”