A round-the-corner ‘Spiroflow’ Aero Mechanical Conveyor loads ingredients into mixers for Butcher’s Pet Care

Butcher’s Pet Care Ltd chose a ‘Spiroflow’ round-the-corner Aero Mechanical Conveyor for their new £38 million, state-of-the-art factory in Crick, Northamptonshire. At their previous premises, there was a first floor from which minor ingredients where loaded into two mixers to be combined with the main bulk meat products. Their impressive new factory is a high roof, single story building. As the mixers are mounted on a raised platform, a means to load the rice and dried peas ingredients from ground floor level was required. Cue Spiroflow! Spiroflow, who was already known to Andrew Pynn, Senior Controls Engineer, were; along with others, invited by Butcher’s Pet Care to offer a suitable conveying solution. From their portfolio of mechanical and pneumatic conveying systems, Spiroflow proposed one of their Aero Mechanical Conveyors in which materials are moved through the partial vacuum created by a series of discs travelling at high speed within an enclosed tube. Engineers from Butcher’s Pet Care witnessed trails at Spiroflow on an Aero Mechanical Conveyor using samples of their rice and dried peas ingredients. They organised similar trials with a vacuum conveyor specialist and, with nothing to choose between the two on price, the ‘Spiroflow’ Aero-Mechanical Conveyor was deemed to offer the better performance in terms of conveying rate and minimal product damage. Butcher’s Pet Care is a family owned business and celebrates 25 years of pet food manufacture this year. Their new 25,150 square meters factory, required to meet the company’s remarkable growth rate, become operational a year ago and was officially opened in March this year. They employ over 200 people many of whom have served for 20 years and more, producing over a million cans of pet food a day! They are now the second largest supplier of wet canned dog food in the UK. The ‘Spiroflow’ Aero Mechanical Conveyor is of all stainless steel construction and complete with an integral sack tip hopper. From the hopper, materials are lifted some 4.5 metres then conveyed horizontally for 3.5 metres before empting into an existing hopper. This hopper has a reversible auger at its outlet so that ingredients can be delivered to either one of the two mixers. Dependent upon the particular recipe, three to four mixes are produced every hour, 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Andrew Pynn comments, “Our own engineers installed and commissioned the ‘Spiroflow’ Aero Mechanical Conveyor about a year ago now and it has performed well ever since”. For more information about Butcher’s Pet Care, their history, their products and their charitable work in the local community, go to www.butcherspetcare.co.uk.