Over seventy-five years ago, the Corrigan family first started growing vegetables for the Victorian market. With a reputation as both innovators and growers of quality produce, Corrigan’s Produce Marketing bought their firstPFM Shamal “Inverted” Flow Wrapper from Emrich Industries in late 2007. Growth in pre-packed produce saw them purchase their second PFM Shamal the following year.
The PFM Shamal inverted flow wrapper gently handles fresh produce including random length products such as spinach, broccoli, leeks and celery by automatically adjusting pack length to suit the product. The PFM Shamal has a food-grade belt infeed to ensure gentle product feeding. This is the most effective way to prevent product damage and reduce waste. Gas flushing of packages (MAP) slows down the natural ageing process by removing harmful gasses whilst ensuring that produce does not dehydrate, thus leading to extended shelf life.
Photoelectric sensors provide “No Product – No Bag” and “Misplaced Product” functionality. This guarantees no wasted empty bags and ensures the gap between the different products while sealing is big enough for the sealing jaw to avoid damage of either the product or the machine. Minimal product damage, reduced cleaning time and less production stoppages produce increased efficiency.
A full colour HMI touch screen gives the operator total control of the various machine functions whilst password protection is available at different levels to prevent interference with the parameter settings.
Because packing sheds can have wet environments and cleaning solutions with acidic properties that can corrode machinery, PFM has a full stainless steel wash-down version, extending the machine life and ensuring peak operating efficiency.
“The PFM Shamal is designed to withstand the harsh production environment in wet produce packing areas,” says Darren Corrigan, Managing Director at Corrigan’s Produce Marketing. Commenting that he was delighted with thePFM Shamal he said, “The machines have given us exceptional reliability and excellent production speeds, they are true workhorses”.
“When we have needed, Emrich has been there to help us test new markets and this has helped immensely with the overall growth in our pre-packed product. This PFM Shamal provides high quality wrapping performance and allows us further expansion into the supermarkets.”
