AAA Growers, Packaging Line, Kenya

The demand for year-round availability of out-of-season vegetables in Western European has prompted the establishment of large vegetable growing and convenience packaging businesses in countries such as Kenya, where the climate is more amenable for mass cultivation.

AAA GROWERS

AAA Growers is a Kenyan-based horticultural firm that farms, processes and exports a wide range of vegetables and flowers for the European, South African and UK markets.

The company has four pack houses on three different farms all equipped with greenhouses and drip irrigation.

Three of the pack houses are for premium vegetable products and the fourth for the preparation of specialised ready-to-eat products. The company harvests, packs and delivers products within 24–48 hours.

PA182

In March 2007, the company purchased and installed a PA182 tray sealer from the UK’s Packaging Automation (PA). The PA182 is a semi-automatic, twin station system designed to allow tray size changeovers (heat sealing tool changeover) in under two minutes, reel changes of film without tools, and easy cleaning with no areas for detritus or insects to accumulate.

The machine is a single-operator, hand-turned rotary table heat sealing machine that can package at a rate of 5,400 packs per hour (43,200 packs per day). The machine weighs 435kg with a footprint of 1,520mm × 1,030mm × 1,770mm.

The machine is able to seal and trim film from a reel onto trays of up to 100mm deep composed of various materials including CPET, polypropylene and PVC at a rate of 15 cycles per minute using a compressed air pressure of 80 psi (the PA 182 is not designed for modified atmosphere packaging).