Cider Maker H.P. Bulmer Speeds Up Profits with Videojet’s 1600 Series High-Utilization Printers
English cider company H.P. Bulmer manufactures two of the United Kingdom’s (UK) most popular brands of alcoholic cider––Bulmers and Strongbow. Founded in 1887, H.P. Bulmer makes 65 percent of the cider sold in the country and most of the UK’s cider exports. At its Hereford, England facility the company produces 132,000 cans and 11,500 bottles of Strongbow per hour, distributing them to suppliers throughout the UK.
In 2010, the Hereford facility had two canning lines that each produced more than 60,000 cans per hour and a bottling line that processed 11,500 polyethylene terephthalate bottles per hour. Such high capacity processing required reliable inkjet printers to apply variable data codes. In the past, H.P. Bulmer relied upon Videojet Technologies’ equipment to handle the coding on their packaging lines. When H.P. Bulmer management decided to upgrade their machines, they asked Videojet to recommend the very latest in inkjet printing technology.