Ishida Itps Helps Snacks Growth

Formed from some of the most famous names in the Spanish snack foods industry, Apex completed a whirlwind of major takeovers four years ago. The stunning organic growth since then says a lot for the planning that went into the acquisitions and for the way the resultant company has been managed.

“The company we envisioned five years back is now a reality and on budget,” says CEO, Santiago Salas. “The units we were bringing together were worth €39M, while Apex already has a value of €50M.” Packing equipment has had an important part to play in keeping product flowing at high volumes and in extracting full efficiencies from the range rationalisations and production scheduling improvements that accompany successful post-merger operations.

Three Ishida Atlas iTPS systems, soon to be joined by a fourth, weigh and pack the majority of the 60 million bags (12,000 tonnes) of snacks produced at Apex’s Riego de la Vega site in León each year. Vital to efficient operation is the interface at which high speed multihead weigher hands product over to high speed bagmaker. This is why, over ten years ago, Ishida became the first company to manufacture integrated weigher-bagmaker combinations. This enabled Ishida design engineers to consider the interface as a whole rather than as separate parts, and to carry on refining it over the years.

“Ishida multiheads are excellent and the Atlas bagmaker is very fast and reliable, with a very good product drop from one to the other.” says Agustin Miguélez, Apex Technical Director. “The Atlas ECO (the latest Atlas system currently being purchased by Apex) is an excellent solution for pillow bags, a good combination of throughput, productivity and price.”

Bag quality is of great importance both for the famous Apex brands and for the white label products that the company produces for most of Spain’s big-name retailers. Here, the rotary-motion sealing jaws, the hot-steel back-seal unit and the precise and consistent control of the film feed all play their part. “The quality of the bags is excellent,” comments Agustin Miguélez, “and the scrap rate with the Atlas is practically zero.”

He continues: “I bought my first Ishida multihead weigher back in 1980, and was very impressed, as I have continued to be over the years. However the service and support have been just as important as the machinery in keeping our business with Ishida. I have personally known the people at CIMA (Ishida’s Distributor in Spain) for 30 years. They offer us technical solutions which meet our needs rather than pushing us to buy expensive machinery for its own sake. We get attention and interest from them even when we have no new projects on the go.”

Source: Ishida