Beyond Meat already expressed immediate preference for Seydelmann

The New Plant

To the general public, The New Plant is probably less well known, but that is certainly not true of neighbor and parent company Zandbergen World's Finest Meat. In the adjacent building, meat has been imported, traded and processed for the entire European market for nearly fifty years. Since 2018, plant-based meat products have also been part of the product range. The New Plant is a co-production facility of Beyond Meat and Zandbergen, which produces the American brand's plant-based meat products for the European market. "The first contact was made five years ago and a cooperation later emerged from that. Already during the planning phase for the new plant here in Zoeterwoude, a preference was immediately expressed for Seydelmann, because that brand was already used in the rotating processes in the United States. Then contact was made with Selo."

MORE EFFICIENT, CALM AND ACCURATE

Sales manager Willy Baalhuis of Selo, the exclusive importer of Seydelmann in the Netherlands for seventy years, says that The New Plant came up with a number of specific questions and wishes, which the Hengelo-based company was able to work with perfectly. "They wanted to partially automate the process, so that an efficiency improvement could be made in terms of the number of personnel, it would thereby create more peace and quiet on the shop floor and, of course, it would significantly reduce the chances of error. The production area contains mixers and cutters from Seydelmann, but the entire supply of ingredients is automated by Selo," says Baalhuis. "All liquid ingredients are dosed and mixed before they go on for further processing in the factory."

The advantage of a new plant is that the production process can be completely customized, Soetens says. "However, the disadvantage is that there was not yet a running process on which we could make improvements. So we literally started from scratch and gradually improved the production process. The line operates to our full satisfaction, but the demand for Beyond Meat's products continues to grow so rapidly that we are already in talks with Selo to fully automate a second (semi-automated) line as well and to further optimize the entire line concept with belts, buffers, screws and vacuum transport, so that we can eliminate standard trucks. And the entire logistics can be automatic and controlled instead of by manual transport."

COOPERATION WITH PARTNERS

Selo operates in both the meat processing and protein processing industries. Vegetable meat products require a different adjustment and approach than meat or meat products, according to Baalhuis. "A lot of machines are basically the same, but for vegetable products you usually need more powerful motors and a different configuration of the machine structure, because the dough is stickier. So the machine needs a little more attention. Fortunately, Selo and Seydelmann are very innovative companies that invest a lot in development. The 1,000-liter cutter is a great example of that, because it is the only vacuum-boiling cutter in the world with that capacity. Over the last 20 years, we have built up a lot of knowledge of oily food products from Selo anyway. We were able to apply that knowledge at The New Plant," Baalhuis explains. "In the case of The New Plant, we are talking about a new plant where only vegetable-based meat products are made. For manufacturers who produce both meat and plant-based products, we always advise separating production, because allergy-wise it is very difficult to use one machine for both types of products." "By the way, the machines are designed in such a way that they can be very easily linked to machines from other brands," Baalhuis continued. "Once the dough is prepared, it is further routed to a portioning machine from Vemag Maschinenbau and an extruder (shaper) from DJM Food Processing. "We as Selo are able to set up an entire factory or production area fully automated or semi-automated. Seydelmann forms the basis for mixing and cutting, but for the other parts of a production line we choose partners we can rely on. Preferred partners with a proven track record. That is certainly the case at The New Plant."

Sticking your neck out for the customer

Selo, says Baalhuis, also sticks its neck out to help customers. "Within Selo we have our own Technology Center, where we have all kinds of different machines and we can test recipes together with food technologists with small quantities and eventually scale them up to the desired capacity. At the moment, we are conducting protein tests with vegetable products according to a new concept. It is very nice for manufacturers anyway that we can test products or a line in practice in our own Technology Center. After all, process support is the best thing there is," he laughs. "Production employees have become 'Operator Foodprocessing.' Together with the customer, we work out concepts that maximize efficiency and minimize the chance of staff errors. Because the entire process is automated, manual intervention is actually no longer necessary. Products are thus consistent in terms of composition, but it also increases food safety and hygienic working. The operator is shown step-by-step on the screen what he or she needs to do. The software is written by Selo itself and we can always watch live from Hengelo if something goes wrong or if the machine gives an error message or a malfunction (Remote Control)." "Together with Selo, we are going to see how we can further increase capacity, because the demand for our products is high. We make portions of minced meat, sausages, burgers and meatballs here. The machines from Selo and Seydelmann are used for all these products," Soetens says. The cooperation between Selo, its partners and The New Plant has ensured that Beyond Meat in Zoeterwoude-Rijndijk has a modern factory where a lot has been automated compared to the existing process in America.

source: Meat & Co,