K&G McAtamney

The Client: K&G McAtamney

have a chain of Butchers and Delis with a concept of offering everything you need for a gourmet meal, freshly prepared onsite by qualified chefs and butchers as well a Wholesale Meats factory.

McAtamney’s Wholesale Meats has a busy, purpose-built factory unit. They supply a range of wholesale meats to the catering and retail trade – Red Meat, Poultry, Lamb, Chicken and breaded products. The factory sources, prepares, packages & distributes all food produce to over 120 hotels, restaurants & butcher’s shops provincewide.

The Challenge: Food retailer contract growth & expansion into UK

McAtamneys reputation for high quality products led to them obtaining multiple new major food retailer contracts, additional expansion into the UK market and the possibility of e-commerce.

The growing market requirement for their products needed to expand the factory’s manufacturing capabilities while still maintaining profitability. In addition to increasing their output, they were looking for consolidation and consistency to their packaging format. They needed to maintain their high-quality standards in product presentation and reach sustainability goals.

The relationship between Packaging Automation partner in Ireland, Versatile Packaging, and K&G McAtamney started over 20 years when they started to supply them with food packaging supplies.

The Solution: Eclipse SL4 SkinPac machine

McAtamney expressed its desire to think ahead and introduce a lasting and sustainable production solution. With plans to increase its entire production, Versatile Packaging had to deliver forward-thinking options that could be easily adapted to meet future requirements.

As a producer of a wide variety of meat products, McAtamneys depend on flexible, high performance packaging solutions that could easily be integrated into its existing production line. They wanted a system that would increase production capacity in the space that was available. Versatile Packaging analysed the product lines and current processes to evaluate the best solution was tailored to their needs and provided more continuity in the way their equipment was laid out.

Listening carefully to the challenges and specific requirements to devise a solution, it was clear that the SL4 would be a perfect solution for MAP products and the Revolution for Skin Packing.

The SL4 and Revolution would give them the speeds and the high-quality finish that they required.

Designed for frequent product changeovers, flexibility is offered with tool changes in minutes and recipe driven set up.

The Result: Increased production, decreased staffing & energy saving

As always, Packaging Automations turnaround times for the installation was excellent. From first order of the machines to delivery it was only 5 weeks meeting the target dates that were required.

Versatile Packaging accommodated K&G McAtamney by completing the installation over the weekend in order to not disrupt production during normal working hours.

The installation of these machines has resulted in increased production capacity with fewer people operating on the production line. This has led to a cost saving in overtime and efficiencies in Quality Control.

These machines incorporate POWERDRIVE technology eliminating the need for compressed air, with energy saving components and standby mode to minimise energy usage during operation which assist K&G McAtamney with their sustainability goals.

Gordon McAtamney, at K&G McAtamney commented:

“Right from the beginning, it became clear that Versatile Packaging were the right partner for us. Over the years, they really understood what our business objectives were and how we could innovate and maintain a competitive edge. We are extremely satisfied with the equipment that they have provided us and are confident that these systems will play a critical role in driving our business forward. Increasing our production capacity was a priority for us, but we were also looking for innovative and efficient solutions that would be flexible enough to fit our space and reach our targets.”