Unifiller equipment
Restaurants and other traditional lunch options are limited due to lingering lockdown closures, and more people rely less on dine-in and more on prepared foods.
As a result, Gareth Gillings, Business Development Manager for Unifiller Systems UK Ltd. said, grab-and-go has become one of the fastest growing industry segments, and retailers are looking to cope with the added volume.
Unifiller equipment is the perfect fit for grab-and-go stores. Not only is our equipment easy to sanitize and switch over, they can easily be setup to portion items other than sandwiches such as flowable salads (macaroni, potato), dressings, dips, soup, etc.”
Unifiller is seeing large producers dropping out of segments where there is steady demand (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, e.g.), leaving a void that others are looking to fill.
Companies that can rapidly start producing off-site will take some of those opportunities and run with them. Typically, that kind of demand is met by companies that have or are willing to invest in equipment to automate production.
That’s where Unifiller comes in. For sandwich production, one great solution, is the Unifiller Pro 1000i machine, either pneumatic or servo, for spreading products onto sliced bread or open rolls. The process works directly over a conveyor belt, where a photosensor sees the slices moving on the belt and then automatically triggers deposits.
When it comes to nozzles, Unifiller nozzles can spread salads (tuna, egg or chicken), spray mustard or mayo, and deposit peanut butter or jelly.
There’s been a shift in the industry in favor of servo machines because of their ability to save recipes, say Gillings. “It gives way to very fast changeups between production runs, making for less downtime and higher productivity,” he said. “Servo machines have more power and that helps to deposit thicker products. We can control the speed of the deposit better and, in some cases, use options like suck-back or pre-charge to deposit difficult products.”
That gives Unifiller more options to help with each customer’s need, he said.
“Because of the pandemic, companies are looking into automation of their process, and we have the tools and the people to set them up with the correct solution.”
