Aperitivos y Extrusionados (Apex), now one of Spain’s top three snack food manufacturers, uses Ishida iTPS integrated weigher-bagmaker combinations, which are playing an important role in achieving the production volume,quality and efficiency.
Apex completed major takeovers four years ago and reached a stunning organic growth since then.
“The company we envisioned five years back is now a reality and on budget,” says CEO, Santiago Salas. “The units we were bringing together were worth EUR39m, while today’s Apex already has a value of EUR50m.”
Packing equipment has had an important part to play in keeping product flowing at high volumes and in extracting full efficiencies from the range rationalisations and production scheduling improvements that accompany successful post-merger operations.
Three Ishida Atlas iTPS systems, soon to be joined by a fourth, weigh and pack the majority of the 60 million bags (12,000 tonnes) of snacks produced at Apex’s Riego de la Vega site in León each year.
Vital to efficient operation is the interface at which high speed multihead weigher hands product over to high speed bagmaker. This is why, over ten years ago, Ishida became the first company to manufacture integrated weigher-bagmaker combinations. This enabled Ishida design engineers to consider the interface as a whole rather than as separate parts, and to carry on refining it over the years.
Bag quality is of great importance both for the famous Apex brands and for the white label products that the company produces for most of Spain’s big-name retailers. “The quality of the bags is excellent,” comments Agustin Miguélez, “and the scrap rate with the Atlas is practically zero.”
