LINPAC boosts washing capacity

09 November 2012

LINPAC Services has boosted its tray and bulk container washing capacity by investing in new technology at its Tamworth site.

The two new machines – a tray wash and a bulk container wash – will reduce turnaround times for customers who use the British Retail Consortium (BRC) accredited washing, repair and hire service.

Primarily used for re-useable Maxinest trays in the grocery and food distribution industry, the new automated wash machine can clean 30,000 trays per day. This increases LINPAC’s wash capacity by over seven per cent or 2,000 trays a day.

The new bulk container wash has halved the turnaround time for Geobox rigid bulk containers, Maxipac bulk shippers and plastic pallets widely used in the agri-food industry. The new machine can wash twice the amount of containers compared to the previous jet washing method.

Lisa Tank, Head of Contract Delivery from LINPAC Services, explains: “As the agriculture, food and grocery supply chain has become increasingly dependent on returnable transit packaging (RTP), the demand for quality and hygiene assured washing and repair services has grown.

“The investment in new tray washing machinery simply means we can wash more trays in a day and get them back to our customers sooner. The machine washes trays at 65°C to 80°C in a sodium hydroxide solution with high pressure jets at 80 psi. The jets are positioned above and below the trays to remove all dirt, food waste and help with label removal. The trays are then rinsed at 40 psi before being swab tested, labelled and returned to the customer for re-use.”

A tray from each pallet load is swab tested to BRC standards and recorded to the batch where readings are retained for twelve months. Swab tests are conducted using the Hygiena system SURE 11 tester. This means that extremely low levels of contamination can be detected in just 15 seconds, which allows immediate action to be taken should a sample be contaminated.

Lisa continues: “We were previously using jet washes for bulk containers and pallets, so the investment in a wash machine has made a significant difference to turnaround times, doubling the amount we can wash in a day.”

LINPAC Services provides a BRC accredited tray and bulk container washing, repair and hire service from a nationwide network of washing and repair centres and is part of leading RTP producer LINPAC Allibert. All of its wash and repair centres adhere to the Food Hygiene Directive (93/43EEC) and use the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) System. For more information visit www.linpacallibert.co.uk/services