“BCP is a very different company from the one you would have seen ten years ago,” says Brian Jones, Managing Director of the business based in Blackburn, England. “We have changed the shape of the business dramatically, implementing a totally new model that is a million miles away from the old, brown box set up which saw us manufacturing transit packaging.”
“Our focus is now on creating packaging solutions that look and function the way our customers need them to, rather than us trying to sell them an off the shelf corrugated product,” explains Brian Jones. “In supplying ovenable baking trays to our customers, for example, we ensure that we understand their requirements, we carry out testing to prove that we can produce a formed corrugated tray that will perform and offer excellent release in a conventional oven, yet still end up looking good, and we continuously assess new materials and formats. This type of product has now really taken off because there are substantial production and environmental benefits for both the baker and the retailer, and we have now had to dramatically increase our production capacity to meet demand.”
First UK Twin Stream
Key to this capacity increase has been the purchase and installation of a Heiber+Schröder CE1000 tray forming line, the first twin stream version of the model to be installed in the UK.
Alan Leeming, Technical Director at BCP, says that the Heiber+Schröder unit quadrupled their tray forming capacity overnight. “Before we installed the CE1000 we were using a combination of trade finishers and a machine we had bought second hand and re-engineered.” As the business demand grew, Alan Leeming and his team looked around for equipment that would give them a capacity buffer for future growth. “Just about everyone we spoke to recommended Heiber+Schröder equipment. We could see the obvious technical benefits, and we felt the Heiber+Schröder would give us higher productivity and the flexibility to handle a wide range of product sizes and substrates.”
Alan Leeming says that pre and post-sales support was an important factor in the purchase decision. “Lee Alton from Bobst Group, who sell and support Heiber+Schröder in the UK, looked at our existing set up with a production eye and understood exactly what we were trying to do. The machine configuration he recommended has proven to be exactly right for us. Once it was installed, the training and ongoing support from both the UK team and the Heiber+Schröder team in Germany has been excellent. While we can work most things out for ourselves, it is important to know that you have very knowledgeable people just a phone call, or a quick drive, away.”
The twin stream version of the CE1000 can process up to 20,000 blanks an hour, and these could be made from material as thin at 200gsm board or as thick as 1.5mm corrugated. The timed belt feeder on the CE1000 is well proven and features a “Teach-in” function for setting the job without the need to measure the carton or to use cams. This feature means that the set-up of the feed length and timing can be carried out in less than a minute. ”The stream of blanks in the CE1000 feeds better than anything else we have used or seen,” says Alan Leeming, “Also its accuracy is excellent and the servos are very well controlled, meaning that the tray doesn’t get battered into shape, but instead is formed smoothly.”
This level of control is achieved thanks to the CE1000’s PC command unit, which allows the operator to set parameters for each of the servo drives.
The other important benefit of the CE1000, as far as BCP is concerned, is that the tower where the formed trays are delivered is made up of elements that are built up as the job runs. “It means you can get in close to set the machine, speeding the make-ready up,” says Alan Leeming.
Alongside the standard gluing capabilities of the CE1000, BCP have added a pump adhesive system and a hot melt unit to their machine. “For our product range we need to be able to apply several different adhesives – from standard glues, to ovenable adhesives and microwavables,” explains Alan Leeming. “We even occasionally have to apply them in combination, so we need the range of application options Heiber+Schröder offers us.”
Green Credentials
The ovenable trays that prompted the installation of the CE1000, deliver a number of benefits to bakery product manufacturers, both in terms of their productivity and their green credentials. Traditionally, cake products have been baked in metal or plastic trays and these are both expensive to buy and to clean. Each cake has to be turned out by hand before being packed into cartons, or placed onto environmentally unfriendly polymer based trays for wrapping.
But with BCP’s Flute-Bake ovenable trays, the raw mix is simply expressed into the corrugated tray and then cooked in a conventional oven. Once cooled, the cake and tray are flow wrapped, ready for delivery to the retailer.
“Consumers like their bakery products in ovenable paper trays because they can see exactly what they are getting,” explains Brian Jones. “We use a greaseproof inner liner to make the double-face corrugated trays, which both creates a barrier and provides release. It means they still look good after cooking and are an attractive, natural shelf-ready pack which appeals to consumers and retailers alike. The trays also provide a solution for baking product in-store, and bakers like the trays because of their cost and environmental benefits.”
Brian Jones says that interest in this type of bakery packaging product has grown spectacularly of late. “Two years ago the market was limited in the U.K. but now we seem to get enquiries every week. This style of tray has started to become the accepted format for cake retail sales; so much so that it now accounts for eight percent of our turnover and is growing.”
The mixture of BCP’s innovative approach to product development and the flexibility of the CE1000, means that the Heiber+Schröder unit is now also being used to produce trays for paninis, croissants, brioche, and other retail food offerings outside of the bakery sector, all variants of the original tray idea. “The reason customers come to us is because we can provide solutions for their packaging problems, whether they need differentiation, improved productivity, or a lowering of their carbon footprint,” says Brian Jones. “At the same time, we also go to our customers with concepts, just to see what they might trigger in them, and this cross-fertilization approach runs throughout our business. We often say ‘Why can’t we do it? Let’s try it?’, and that way we come up with some very creative ideas which deliver huge benefits to our customers.”
While the old BCP, or Blackburn Corrugated Paper as it was known up until the 1990’s, was a straightforward brown box plant, BCP today is very much a specialist outfit. “We are in the corrugated business, but we are not a corrugated plant as most people would know it,” says Brian Jones. “Our solutions are unique, especially in the substrates we use, and we invest a lot of time and effort in developing new ideas. While the costs are high, it is the development of these new ideas that drives our business on.” Last year alone the company was recognised with two innovation awards – the Foodservice Packaging Association's Product Innovation Award and the Be Inspired Creative Business of the Year Award.
Well Known
Liners for perfumes and cosmetics, along with insulated paper cup wraps, food-to-go packaging, and bakery packaging lines, are the core markets for BCP. Anything, Alan Leeming says, that the operators can get through the plant’s recently installed 1.4 metre wide corrugator and its Bobst die-cutting and gluing equipment. Food packaging, particularly corrugated susceptor products for food-to-go, has been a big growth area of late, as has cosmetics. “Brands like Estee Lauder, Avon, and Oriflame use our products to the point where we now corrugate a vast array of bespoke coloured papers for all of Europe’s big name cosmetics companies. One of our advantages is that we can run our corrugator on anything from 20g tissue to 230g board, which gives us a massive range of substrates and coatings to call upon.”
BCP’s name is well known amongst major retailers and manufacturers. “We are a niche player of note, rather than a ‘me too’ supplier,” explains Brian Jones, and this high profile perhaps further explains the company’s 30% growth in the last year.
“While some of our markets are reasonably mature, our success is largely due to delivering new products and solutions that are both innovative and have sustainability,” says Brian Jones. Having moved into new, larger and more modern premises in 2006, and having already extended them once, BCP is looking to expand its plant yet again in 2010. “We need the extra space to continue to develop the smart products that our customers love, and lines like the Heiber+Schröder tray former are key to us doing that. This year will see the culmination of a £1.5 million investment in a unique ‘patent applied for’ process - one which will see the birth of another innovative product for the Retail Sector. So watch this space!” concludes Brian Jones.
