May’s machine of the month is a jar and bottle labelling system design and built for Cottage Delight, producers and purveyors of speciality foods such as jams, chutneys, biscuits and sauces.
Based in Leek in the Peak District, they offer cottage industry products and manufacturing processes, and whilst they still maintain their original kitchen processes, they approached ALTech to improve the efficiency of their labelling process.
Cottage Delight use a wide range of jars and bottles, including both round and rectangular bottles as well as standard, hexagonal and lipped jars, which presented a challenge in terms of labelling. They also required tamper evidence labels to be applied to their bottles and rotationally aligned to their centrally positioned logo on the body label.
ALTech provided the solution based on their modular ALline machine, featuring two particularly innovative technologies (amongst its already comprehensive specification); a stepper controlled high speed rotary adaption system which is fully synchronised to the machine, designed to adapt a tamper label on the neck of the bottle with touch screen control HMI, and a rotational orientation registration system to precisely position the body label to the tamper label just applied.
Also included with the machine was a traditional hotfoil batch stamping device for label coding and batch traceability, chosen by the customer over some newer technologies to give a more ‘cottage’ embossed feel to the date/batch code print.
The machine is supplemented by infeed and outfeed turntables driven off the main conveyor of the solid base ALline machine for maximum standalone efficiency.
The system was an almost instant success for the business, dramatically increasing production efficiency following installation. It has been installed for just over 3 years with little or no service requirements – in fact the customer has just placed an order for a second ALline machine for their main jar line to be placed in-line with their filler/depositor equipment.
Testimonial from Cottage Delight:
Operations Manager, Cottage Delight
“Working with ALTech on the machine we wanted was a pleasure, when we told other machine manufacturers what we wanted they just said no problem but ALTech go further than that by explaining in detail every way you can achieve what you have requested then helping you to decide the most efficient and cost effective solution taking away any doubt that the machine you are buying may not do everything you want it to”.
Factory test – with square bottles
Customer site operation – with round bottles
