Robots pick and pack 1,700 Jammie Dodgers a minute

Burton's Foods, Britain's second largest biscuit manufacturer, has chosen a Schubert automated packaging system for Jammie Dodgers at its bakery in...

Burton's Foods, Britain's second largest biscuit manufacturer, has chosen a Schubert automated packaging system for Jammie Dodgers at its bakery in Wales.

The high-performance line boasts 16 robots, which rapidly pick and place more than 1,700 biscuits a minute in a round-the-clock operation five days a week at Burton's production facility in Llantarnam.

The robots pack eight Jammie Dodgers into each tray and can fill up to 220 trays a minute from the system's 1.6m wide conveyor, one of the widest-ever built by Schubert. The line also incorporates Schubert's new generation vision system that checks the surface decoration, pattern and colour of the biscuits.

The vision system takes a colour image of the product, which is then communicated to the system's robots so that only biscuits that conform to the correct quality are packed. The vision system is specially designed to identify potential problems such as broken, displaced or missing shells. Jammie Dodgers were previously packed by hand, a monotonous, labour-intensive operation.

This is the second Schubert system bought by Burton's Foods. It uses a similar line for packing Cadbury's biscuits.

Contact: Schubert; Tel: 01676 525825