Setting The Pace For Ready Meal Production- October 10th 2022

Changing consumer lifestyles have been driving the ready meal market for some years now, with the on-going trend towards convenience continuing to boost sales. However, with consumers becoming more concerned about quality, convenience is no longer a strong enough selling point.

To maintain consumer interest, ready meal producers place more emphasis in new product development, focusing on the quality of produce and increased sophistication of the meal. Today’s ready meals contain fresher, often only part cooked ingredients which enhance the quality and aesthetic of the meal.

An area of significance to the ready meal producer is also achieving homogenous proportions with equal mixes of product per meal. This can be difficult to achieve as depositors tend to draw in the most fluid product first, such as sauces or soft particulates for example. Alongside this, it's also important to attain an even distribution of the product within the container.

To meet these requirements Riggs Autopack Model 1000 depositors have been developed to provide damage free product handing with highly accurate depositing and are trusted by a wide group of customers. They are available as semi or fully automatic models with pneumatic or PLC control, hopper feed or direct connection to tote bins or cooking kettles, and low or high-level frame configuration.

Each depositor is bespoke designed and manufactured to cater for the client’s product range and container type and size, whether that's single or multi-compartment, and they can be easily integrated with third-party supplied tray or pot sealing conveyors.

 

  

 

Riggs Autopack General Manager Andrew Bishop commented: “Our Model 1000 depositors are designed for small, medium, or large-scale food producers and suitable for a broad range of ready meal applications. Over the years we have helped many companies throughout the UK with their food production needs”.

Andrew Bishop concluded: “Riggs Autopack’s depositors can achieve minimum waste, excellent fill accuracy and safety in terms of handling hot products, damage free depositing of fragile particulates, repeatable automation and greater throughput with high efficiency. With regard to the ready meal industry, our depositors are ideal; their ability to rapidly change from one product to another with minimum downtime can help food producers achieve optimum utilisation and profitability”.