The visit was the first BBI visit to a Dairy for many years and was hosted by Kaj Kristiansen, Project Manager and Flemming Krabbenhoft, Process Manager

Kaj Kristiansen opened the proceedings by giving a very informative presentation on the site and company history. Arla Foods was established in April 2000 by the merger of Arla of Sweden and MD Foods of Denmark, and as well as being a Global player, is the largest Dairy group in Europe.

The Hatfield Several Dairy is famous for its production of micro filtered pasteurised milk (Cravendale Purfiltre), which gives extended shelf life and still leaves all the goodness and taste of fresh milk. Members were able to view this process on the tour of the Dairy. The Dairy also produces standard pasteurised milk, as well as organic fresh milk and is the glass-bottling centre in the South of England in order to provide doorstep deliveries to houses in London and the Southeast.

The tour of the plant gave members the opportunity to view two production lines filling plastic bottles, and a third line producing returnable bottles and also viewing another significant area of the plant namely the processing plant for Micro Filtration and Flash Pasteurisation of raw milk as it is fed to the production lines.

Another interesting part of the tour was our visit to the Tetra Pak MPS Ltd. ‘hole in the wall’ operation, where plastic bottles (HDPE) are supplied direct to the production lines. Nigel Sladden, manager of the Tetra Pak operation, conducted this part of the tour. The operation consisted of two blow moulding lines with the appropriate trimming and bagging machines matching this speed, (used when there is a break in bottling production to keep the blow moulders running).

The visit finished with an excellent buffet lunch and tasting of Arla fresh products, which also gave members the time and opportunity to discuss points, noted during the tour.

John Yates, BBI National Chairman, rounded off the proceedings by proposing a vote of thanks to Arla Foods for their hospitality and a very interesting visit.

BRIAN GIBBS-SOUTHERN AREA CORDINATOR