New Schubert packaging line at Tunnocks

3 December 2010 – A high performance packaging line by Schubert has been installed at Scottish firm Tunnocks’ Uddingston site to pack the famous Tunnocks teacakes and is designed to pack either six or ten teacakes to a box or 12 to a tray. The high speed machine packs up to 67 cartons per minute for the six count carton and 40 cartons per minute for the ten count carton.

The line can pack up to 400 products a minute and has a Schubert vision system incorporated for quality control purposes. Any misshapen or broken products are automatically rejected before the final packaging process.

The system features a TLM-F44 Picker Station which is used to pick up the teacakes and place them on to the grouping belt conveyor. They are then transported to the machines central loading operation. The rectangular cardboard carton is erected from a flat carton blank and glued by means of hot melt, using a carton closing machine. A Schubert TLM-F2 loading system then picks up the collated teacakes and loads them into the cartons.

The flexible system is also able to pack the products into an acetate tray. By changing the format parts, the versatile machine is capable of de-nesting the tray, loading the new format with ‘completion inspection’ and discharging from the system.

Tunnocks has transformed its manual packing of teacakes “the new Schubert line has improved productivity, and efficiency has increased” comments Boyd Tunnock CBE.

Tunnocks has just invested in a second Schubert automated packaging machine for its tea cakes.