Albert Oenology are suppliers to the wine industry based in Gaillac, France. Situated on the River Tarn to the northeast of Toulouse, this viticultural area offers several varieties of dry white and richly coloured spice-scented red wines, produced by around 50 vineyards covering 4,200 hectares.
The Gaillac vignerons buy their glass bottles and a wide choice of packaging materials from Albert Oenology, including corrugated products, such as boxes and dividers. These wine producers also order specialist corrugated packaging, such as Albert’s V Box and other display material, much of which is personalised to distinguish the wine varieties from each other, and to enhance the marketing of the unique wine they offer. A recent business for Albert Oenology has been to assist the beer industry and micro-breweries springing up in the area, by offering individual designs of glass bottle and other packaging concepts to help build the identity for these new beverages.
A waste by-product from deliveries of quantities of glass bottles are the corrugated slips used to protect the layers of glass on the pallet. Instead of putting these slips straight into the recycling, Albert wanted to slit the board into 50mm, 100mm and 200mm wide lengths, so that they could be utilised for other purposes. The plan was to produce protective packaging, such as edge protectors, dividers to protect individual filled bottles.
A simple, easy to use slitter was required, and so in July, Albert ordered the new Fyne Tornado Slitter from Fyne Packaging Ltd. The Tornado features quick lock setting tools permitting a rapid size change, and can convert board up to 2.0m in width in one quick pass, which made it ideal for this application. The machine can be moved around as necessary as it only requires single phase supply.
The Fyne Tornado was installed at the beginning of September and put immediately to good use. Thibault Albert, Managing Director, explained that he is delighted with the machine, passing the first 10,000 slips through the machine on the day it arrived.
