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When Lyons
bought Kunzles I was the Project Engineer
given the job of buying a new chocolate
moulding machine. At Garretts Green
factory Kunzle had choc. moulding 2
machines both old-both Danish, an Aaasted
and a Jenson.
This
factory was to be closed and everything
moved to the other one in the group,which
was in Smethwick - the old Scribona
Fullers bakery. It must have been around
1973.
I went to
Denmark and Germany and eventually we
bought a Bindler Mouding machine which
was a huge rectangular loose mould
machine, with nickel plated moulds for the
4 shapes. The whole project of
installation in an air-conditioned area, -
we build internal rooms and then the long
conveyors where they were hand filled with
Genoese sponge, butter cream and
decorated.
There were
10 ladies each side - a total of 40 girls
alone . The total crew for the whole
line must have been about 55, so it was
incredibly labour intensive.
The move
to Smethwick must have cost around
£150,000 and remember this was around
1973. The machinery was far from
perfect. I recall the moulds tended to
slip out of position in the coolers and
cause smash-ups.
Anyway the
line ran and production was ok and they
were packed in singles x 24 to a carton,
in 4's and also in 6's. so there was a lot
of cartooning and over wrapping
machinery as well which we moved
.
A few
years later Lyons decided to move all
their 4 or 5 factories into one huge
facility in Yorkshire. Naturally I got the
job.of sorting out the move of the
Showboat plant. The product was
stockpiled but the job could never be done
quickly and I guess they were all sold and
taken off the shelve for a few
months.
We built a
new room to be air conditioned under the
mezzanine, and dismantled and re-installed
the Bindler moulder, and also moved the 15
ton chocolate tanks, all the jacketed
piping and the other specialist chocolate
machinery.
When the
shell were de-moulded the moulds were
inverted, so the shells, by then cooled so
they shrink, were hit with automatic nylon
faced hammers. Noise regulations
ment this noise had to be muted and I made
an acoustic hood to place over this area,
but the hood had to lifted regularly so we
put a beam and electric hoist in the
ceiling to do this, and then of course
such lifting equipment has to have a
safety certificate every year, so more
admin cost!
We still
had the huge crew of girls filling the
shells. We spent time considering
how to automate the whole thing.
Change the
cake to rice crispies so they could be
metered automatically, etc. We ended
up with a huge new machine -on paper
only- I can't remember what it would
have cost to make but the Directors would
never have authorised. Chocolate
prices were always rising. They did
trials on a less expensive grade of
chocolate, moving the coco solid %
lower; mabe this lost sales and
slowly the product died. Lyons
killed it off long before RHM and Kipling
came in the scene.
I
went to Australia for the firm in Sept
1977. By then the line was
running. I think it only lasted
there about 2 years. So I hope
I have given you some facts about
Showboats and there is no chance that the
product will ever return. The
economics just don't add up.
©
Gerald
Diamond 2004
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