ICI Paints, part of AKZO NOBEL one of Europe’s largest Global Companies, kindly agreed to host a visit by members of the BBI to their operation at Stowmarket, Suffolk. The plant was built in 1972 and commissioned to manufacture paint for the UK Trade and Retail markets and now has the capability of manufacturing 120-140,000,000ltrs of paint annually.
There are 7 filling lines with fully automated packing (Robots) facilities. 4 production lines are in the main paint filling hall which fills 80% of plant volume with the other 3 filling lines situated in the Timber treatment plant.
A recent multi million pound investment included the repositioning of the 4 lines and the introduction of 4 new robots and LGVs, and an automated stretch wrapping system. The manufacturing process is fully automated and can manufacture a 25,000ltr batch in 5hrs, and from start of manufacture a batch is delivered to the local depot in less than 8 hours. The Plant is a low manned operation and works a 24hr, 5.5 day week.

BBI members visit John Dewar Bottling and Warehousing facility at Glasgow.

Founded in 1846 by John Dewar senior, John Dewar & Sons Ltd has grown from a small wine and spirits merchant shop in Perth, Scotland, to become a global brand and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bacardi & Company Ltd.
There are 7 bottling lines on a site that employs over 200 people, with extensive warehousing for casks and finished goods. Recent projects include implementation of a wireless cask management system for cask warehousing, bottling plant and finished goods. The site produces 5 million cases p.a.
The product range includes Dewar’s White Label, Dewar's 12 & William Lawson’s Finest Blend and other single malt Scotch whiskies.

Eden Valley Mineral Water kindly agreed to allow BBI members to visit their Mineral Water bottling facility at Armathwaite, Carlisle.

Set in the beautiful Cumbrian countryside surrounded by rolling hills, the site, was acquired by Princes in June 2004. The plant takes around 250 million litres of spring water per year from five boreholes near Armathwaite, and the product is sold under the Aqua Pura brand name as well as retailer own label products.
There are 4 PET bottling lines on site each line being fed by PET bottle blow moulding machine, all lines having various multipack and display pallet options; there is also a water cooler filling line. There is a variety of equipment to be seen, Sidel bottle blowers, and Ocme fillers, Kister shrink wrapping machines, Acmi palletiser and Aetna shrinkwrapper. A new turnkey line (£5 million investment), rated at 20,000 2litre bottles per hour, has recently been installed too boost annual production by more than 40 per cent to 250 million litres.

BBI members visit Robert Wiseman “state of the art” Dairy at Bridgwater.

Land was broken at the 21-acre Bridgwater site in September 2006 and production started at the end of 2007. The company invested £80m in building the facility and bringing it to a capacity of 250m litres of milk a year. A total of £45m was invested in the new 325,000m² plant and a further £35m were spent on kit. There is a “hole in the wall” blow-moulding facility within the Bridgwater site that runs 4 blow-moulding lines to serve 3 Stork filling lines. The Bridgwater site uses a range of equipment brands, including Stork fillers, Isoma conveyors and roll-container packers, APV processing equipment, PDC sleevers, cap delivery from Asmech and Meypack shrinkwrappers. Expansion plans are being undertaken to increase capacity from 250m litres of milk a year to 350m litres and the site employs over 350 people. Robert Wiseman produces its own-brand dairy products in addition to serving customers such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Iceland the Co-op.

The BBI are extremely grateful to ICI Paints, John Dewar, Princes Soft Drinks and Robert Wiseman for their hospitality in hosting these visits and sharing their values with us.

Brian Gibbs