Inter Link weighs in to Poland

Speed was the order of the day when Stevens Weighing Group won an order to supply and install a multi-station Vantage recipe formulation and traceability system for own-label cake and pastry supplier Inter Link Foods at its newly acquired facility in Poland. The complete system had to be installed and operational within five weeks, including writing the software in Polish.

In December 2004 Inter Link acquired Cukiernia Mistrza Jana (CMJ), a private company based in Szczecin (pronounced Shtetchin) in north west Poland, providing the company with a first step into the important and growing mainland European markets.

CMJ produces a wide range of small cakes and cookies, operating from a 6,300m2factory with considerable spare capacity. Inter Link intends to use part of this new capacity to manufacture a range of products for UK customers and with Szczecin only 30 minutes from the German border, products can be shipped to UK distribution centres within 24 hours.

The catalyst for this latest installation was a new contract to supply a range of cakes to Tesco.

Throughout the project Stevens worked in close cooperation with its Italian parent company Dataprocess, which has a Polish facility.

The variety and diversity of Inter Link's products dictate that the recipes are made up by manually adding the ingredients. The Vantage recipe formulation modules have been specifically developed to provide a complete recipe management, stock control and traceability system.

The installation in Szczecin comprises five Vantage recipe weighing and labelling stations and two collation systems, all controlled by a central PC. The recipe stations are used to weigh out specific ingredients to form sub-mixes.

Contact: Stevens Group,

Tel: 01254 685200