At Nutricia Baby Care, hygiene and health & safety is
naturally given a very high priority. The function of the
Wells, Somerset production unit is to develop, manufacture
and supply wet and dry baby meals, desserts, fruit juices
and fruit concentrates to marketing units within the Cow &
Gate and Milupa brand names.
Adam Lusby, Operations Manager at Nutricia explains: ‘We
have between 150 - 200 recipes of baby food and produce 500,000
to 600,000 jars daily, running at speeds of 600 jars per minute
on two production lines and our in-process dryers are important
for two reasons.’ stated Lusby.
Glass jars are bought-in, inspected, washed, tempered and
sent to the fillers where the required recipe is inserted
into the jars and capped-off. We then have to remove the bulk
of the surface water firstly to ensure a good adhesion of
label to jar, and secondly to ensure no rusting of the cap.
When the tin plate caps are stamped out, rolled & formed
to shape, there is a cut edge inside that would be susceptible
to rusting if infiltrated by water. This is a health risk
that is not acceptable in the food industry and is eradicated
by ACI’s In-Line Drying systems.’
‘We test and check at every stage to make sure our products
meet the highest standards. A jar of baby food can go through
250 checks before it reaches the supermarket shelf. Naturally,
we're scrupulous in making sure we meet all the latest safety
and quality standards and set our own higher internal standards
and work continuously towards improving our products. Babies
have unique nutritional requirements, so before the next Cow
& Gate vegetable dinner leaves this unit in dried jars,
with its own unique label, we know we have done everything
to see that they get the foods that are right for them.’
concluded Adam Lusby.
