Food & drink –   Food & drink –   Food & drink –  

Did you know approximately one third of reportable injuries in the food and drink industries are acute injuries caused by lifting and handling, with over half of these caused by lifting and three-quarters of these can be prevented. Most musculoskeletal injuries in food and drink industries arise from:

• Repetitive tasks such as cutting, boning and jointing etc….
• Pushing racks or trolleys.
• Stacking/unstacking containers.
• Packing products.
• Handling heavy containers of liquids.

By focusing your risk assessments on these five areas and ensuring that employees carrying out these activities are protected, it is possible to dramatically reduce the risk of injury.

The food and beverage manufacturing industry rely on seamless, reliable and efficient processes to ensure they deliver their customer’s orders on time and to scale and with the ultimate reassurance all processes have been carried out in a safe and hygienic manner whilst complying with the stringent regulations of the industry. If it is found that a food or beverage manufacturer is not complying, the manufacturer will be faced with product recalls and hefty fines which are both wasteful and costly in monetary and brand reputation terms.

With all this in mind, manufacturers must trust that their suppliers fully understand the industry’s challenges and that everything they receive adheres to regulations.

Read on to explore how our lifting and handling solutions have and can be adapted for the industry to carry out specific processes whilst complying with regulations.

Food and drink manufacturers also need to ensure their processes are 100% reliable as downtime is extremely costly. In addition to this, the nature of the industry means that all areas are washed using special chemicals and solutions to maintain hygiene standards. Most manufacturers also have areas set at variable temperatures such as walk in freezers, refrigerated areas and warm rooms. Manufacturers who invest in our solutions have the peace of mind that they can cope in variable temperatures and they’re ergonomically designed to ensure both reliability and durability.

Did you know, ALL our solutions can be manufactured in stainless steel or with stainless steel elements so they’re food safe. We know it’s not always that easy and have years of experience working in the food and beverage industry always ensuring the end-solution is fully compliant with regulations. We also design custom lifting and handling solutions for when your application is truly unique. Click here to explore our bespoke projects:

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Here are just a few examples of other unique challenges the food and beverage manufacturing industry face and how our solutions can help.

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Goods In – The delivery of ingredients & products:

For food and beverage manufacturers, it is very typical for ingredients to be delivered in bulk on pallets in 25kg sacks, cartons, boxes, and bottles.

Our Voyager and Freedom Stackers and pallet lifters can be used to transfer these pallets to storage with models suitable for lifting half and full-sized pallets.

If your storage is on another floor or a mezzanine floor, a Mezzanine Goods Lift can transport the pallets up and down safely and efficiently.

Transferring to the processing area:

When you’re ready to transfer the ingredients to the processing area, a Movomech Vacuum Lifter is perfect for lifting from a pallet and onto a conveyor, to a hopper or onto an additional mobile lifting solution such as a mobile scissor lift table or Pronomic Lifting Trolley to take your ingredients to their next process.

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During Processing:

This is the area with the biggest risk of cross-contamination for food manufacturers therefore it is paramount at this stage that any equipment the product comes into contact with is food safe and hygienic.

Our Pronomic Lifting Trolleys, particularly the Pronomic IE model, is a key member of the team at many food manufacturers as it is manufactured in Stainless Steel and has a fully welded chassis to maximise hygiene and durability and minimise areas where product can accumulate.

Whether it is a Squeeze & Turn model to lift, transport and tip pots of liquids or ingredients into hoppers or moulds or an Expand & Turn model to transport rolls of packaging and labelling to spindles, we will have a solution for you.

Other add-ons/accessories we have which are perfect for the food manufacturing industry include:

• Weighing Scales
• Box Tilter
• Tipping Device
• Loading Platform
• Roller Platform
• Folded Platform for Containers

Click to explore our full range of Pronomic Lifting Trolleys.

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Packing & Palletising Post-Production Ready for Distribution:

Once the end-product has been manufactured and individually packaged, the next step is typically for the units to be packaged into bundles, boxed, palletised, and then sent to post-production storage or straight out to customers. At this stage and in addition to the solutions mentioned above, the most popular solutions include:

EZ Loader – Our pneumatic scissor lift table with auto-levelling perfect for the end of a production line to help stack pallets with boxes with no need for the operator to bend, stretch or twist.

Low Profile Scissor Lift Table – Our Low-Profile Static Scissor Lift Table allows GKN & U-Shaped pallets of up to 1,000kg (single scissor) to be loaded and unloaded from the table using just pallet truck. Despite having an exceedingly shallow closed height (of approximately 800mm spec dependent), they can also be pit-mounted so when they’re not in use, they can be stored in line with the floor.

All our ergonomic lifting and handling solutions dramatically improve workflow turning processes which usually require multiple people to carry out into one person tasks, improving your overall health and safety, and increase the efficiency of the production line from goods-in to despatch.