Masteroast
Masteroast
  • Home
  • About us
    • Our Group Companies
    • Latest News
    • Quality Assurance
  • Sustainability
  • Our Coffee
    • Coffee Development
  • Your Brand
    • Product Range >
      • Bags
      • Boxes and Foils
      • Coffee Bags
      • Sachets
      • Capsules
      • Tins/Cans
    • Labels & Prints
    • Design
    • Certification
  • Non-Coffee
    • Birchall Tea
    • Beyond The Bean
  • Contact us
    • Customer Ordering Portal
  • Home
  • About us
    • Our Group Companies
    • Latest News
    • Quality Assurance
  • Sustainability
  • Our Coffee
    • Coffee Development
  • Your Brand
    • Product Range >
      • Bags
      • Boxes and Foils
      • Coffee Bags
      • Sachets
      • Capsules
      • Tins/Cans
    • Labels & Prints
    • Design
    • Certification
  • Non-Coffee
    • Birchall Tea
    • Beyond The Bean
  • Contact us
    • Customer Ordering Portal

Masteroast, The drive for flexibility.

30/3/2020

Comments

 
Picture
Masteroast Capsule Machine Development - Article published in Packaging News Magazine

Popularity and market demand filters down the supply chain, placing immense pressure on suppliers, roasters and grinders as they try to keep pace with consumer demand for convenience and new innovations.
A company which has undertaken investment to cater for these varying market forces is Masteroast, one of the UK’s largest independent coffee roaster/packers. Its reputation for high-quality coffee and innovative packaging has allowed it to grow sales in a highly competitive retail sector. Following a recent investment in process and filling for coffee capsules, pressure was building to reduce cost and increase throughput on the packaging line. Masteroast’s problem was that customers wanted different packaging styles to create differentiation in the market. Standard 1 x 10 tube formats for Nespresso compatible capsules are well recognised, but for a point of difference for higher-end products, a unique format with more drama and customer engagement was required. To take this next step, Masteroast explored the machine-builder market for a suitable secondary packaging machinery supplier. They tasked Cama to develop a solution to its coffee packaging requirements.
Andy Fawkes, managing director at Masteroast explains, ‘We’ve held a unique position in the market and we are known for our ability to offer flexibility, short-run capabilities and high levels of quality. When we moved into the capsule market, we knew we had to exploit automation for capacity and cost reasons – but we did not want to give up flexibility. Cama offered us significant coffee packaging experience and we knew it was well established in this market. Its capabilities to deal with short runs and different packaging formats ticked all our requirements.’

‘Working in collaboration with our dedicated packaging design department, Masteroast developed a new box design that comprises a top opening tray with an insert that allows the capsules to be presented - like a gift box. This approach allows us to offer a packaging format with a sense of occasion – created by a theatrical product reveal of the contents of the carton,’ Mark Brooker director of Cama UK points out.
'Cama helped us,' Fawkes adds. 'We knew the format we wanted, but at the time it did not exist. The packaging design team helped us with technical advice, relating to the best types of cardboard, how it was folded and manufactured. The Cama team also talked
to our supply chain, helping us to bring it all together.’

From a technology perspective, Masteroast needed a machine-based solution that could package tubes and trays, using a continuous stream of individual products fed from a downstream capsule filling and sealing machine. The machine had to offer easy changeover, to rapidly adapt to the different style production runs. Coupled with delivering the necessary flexibility, this would also make significant contributions to OEE. Cama’s solution was its Break Through Generation (BTG) machines that incorporates precision feeding of the aluminium capsules, robotic manipulation of capsules into a single row for tubes or a double row for trays, before presenting them to a Cama CL intermittentmotion side load cartoner.

The key to the flexibility of the line is Cama’s MN (‘Y’ shaped) robot at the infeed. With the innovative design of the robot’s pick
head, the facility can minimise the changeover time between the different packaging formats. Both these run at 120 capsules per minute. ‘Cama has experience and market knowhow,’ Fawkes elaborates. ‘The team ended up holding our hand throughout the entire process – from design through rollout and through to implementation. This was a huge comfort factor. With anything new, there’s always the fear that you don’t get what you ask for. Cama understand our needs, namely flexibility and reliability, which was so ​essential to us.


Read More
Comments

Remote working and the importance of routine.

24/3/2020

Comments

 
Picture
​​During these times of upheaval where many of us are adapting our work routine it's important to take stock of what is important and what we have to accept will be different. Masteroast is also going through this process and we would like to share a few of the tips we are picking up along the way. The below is just a few routine habits that we find will ease this transition from the traditional office to the kitchen table/spare room/ garden/sofa or home office

Habits are daily behaviours that are carried out automatically or with very little thought.  Scientific study backs the importance of creating and maintaining positive habits. The routines we hold allow us to minimise effort and allow us to improve productivity as well as settling us with predictability. We are confident the sun will rise, that work finishes at a certain time and that coffee in the morning while you're hurrying to your desk is an essential ingredient in getting those tricky first few emails sorted. We also continually strive to predict the weather with the accuracy of a blind darts man in our quest to know. We love routine and routine really is healthy. Let us see what we can do to maintain some of these rituals. 

6 Home working tips

1. A set work pattern that is similar to your usual working hours. That includes lunch breaks and coffee stops. Definitely coffee stops!

2. A new work environment can be quite difficult to get used to. Get comfy and ensure that you have all the tools that you're likely to need. When you do take breaks perhaps give a friend or colleague a call, or take a quick walk. 

3. Stay connected: Keep your colleagues, friends and family close, that is important. These connections help you remain a more rounded mentally healthy person. When you get the opportunity to talk to someone, don't send an email, pick up the phone and update them on which stage of a project that you're at or where you're going with it. 

4. Just because you're not at your usual working environment doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep hydrated and have the occasional coffee. Enjoying a coffee is a pleasure you can still bring to the work area you've curated.

5. Though it may be tempting to start work without having a shower or even getting dressed we would recommend maintaining a presentable appearance if not for anyone else but yourself. Getting ready for the day out at the office is a big part of how you see and present yourself. This is up there with point 1 about keeping a regular work pattern. 

6. Technology has come a long way, not least to allow you to fulfil your office role from home but in the way you can communicate face to face, use apps like Zoom, Messenger and Skype to communicate with your colleagues and discuss business activities. This technology again goes some way to plugging the gap in your social life with face to face communication.  ​

The above 6 points are just some of the steps that we'd recommend that you take over the next few weeks of what is undoubtedly a tough time. Keep your life's routines as best one can as you start to adapt to the changes we are facing right now.  
 
Remember, keep calm and work from home.
Comments

Mastercol Speciality Coffee

2/3/2020

Comments

 
Picture
Masteroast is proud to be able to highlight some of the excellent work carried out by our sister company in Colombia; MasterCol.
MasterCol is a speciality coffee exporter with a focus on high quality and sustainable supply chain support for their producing partners and overseas buyers.
 
Below are a couple of videos showing one of the projects that MasterCol is supporting
Picture
Jericó is a beautiful vibrant and colorful place, the farmers there are incredibly dedicated to the tradition of quality coffee cultivating. The above video shows how they are tied to tradition and the use of a famous satchel that is made in the town that they call a Carriel or Guarnial. The farmers used this to do one of the most important responsibilities in Jericó and that was to go into town and pay the "journal" They used this customary bag to pay the workers. A key element of Jerico Antioquia that makes this a primed specialty coffee producer would be the elevation, the town sits at 1,950 masl, the elevation is only bested by the landscape which is truly beautiful. Don't take my word for it, watch the video. 

If you have any interest in any particular coffees that we can help source from Colombia, please do not hesitate to ask the Masteroast team.
Picture
Comments

Honduras Origin Trip 2019

2/3/2020

Comments

 
Picture
Fruits of our labour cherry picking

Masteroast Origin Trip to Honduras.

Our visit started from our base in San Pedro Sula to the Puerto Cortes just north of San Pedro Sula. The Port manages the largest volume of traffic in Central America, moving not only all of the coffee produced in Honduras but a good volume from Guatemala as well. 
Picture
Trip to Puerto Cortez
​The following day we headed inland to Santa Rosa de Copa to visit one of our principal suppliers, Coffee Planet Corporation. Douglas Urquia and his team made us feel very welcome, providing us with a tour of the milling facility and explaining the philosophy behind the business. We were then presented with a mix of past crop Microlots as well as some of the initial harvest of this season, which was a fascinating exercise. There was a clear favourite on the table which was a pulped natural displaying a “marzipan” flavour as coined by Karen Stockwell.

Omar Rodriquez a 4th Generation Coffee farmer and General Manager of Capucas cooperative, then lead the team up the mountain and provided some insights in Small Holder farming as well as Coop management. By the time we the cabins where we would be spending the night, it was already dark. In the morning the team awoke from their cabins which we realised were right in the middle of the coffee farms and presented with spectacular views as well as a hearty breakfast. 
​An early start into the mountains to see the coffee growing at high altitudes, seeing the fertilizers created as part of their projects in use on the coffee plants and also a coffee plant which has sustained coffee leaf rust damage(La Roya) and the devastating effects it can have on a farm should it spread to the rest of the crop, something all too real for these farmers still recovering from the widespread damage this caused in the early part of the decade and something they are working hard to keep at bay for the sakes of their families livelihood and future. We tried our hand at cherry picking and manually wet processing the cherries we picked to see just how labour intensive the process is, then we got to plant our very own saplings and name them so that in 2 years’ time they will bare their fruits.
Picture
Karen and her proudly planted sapling


Read More
Comments

    Masteroast

    A collection of articles written by the dedicated staff of Masteroast 

    Archives

    October 2024
    March 2023
    April 2022
    March 2022
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    Alerts
    Coffee Availability
    Coffee Benefits
    Fun
    Fundraising
    Informative
    Mastercol
    Masteroast
    News
    Training
    Trips

Our Services

Coffee Sourcing

Design Service

Quality Assurance

Company

About us

Contact us

Careers

Customer Ordering Portal

News & Info

News

Gallery

Terms of Use

Trading Terms & Conditions

Picture
Copyright © 2024,                                                                                                  Masteroast Coffee Company Ltd,                                              01733 842000
Photo from Carine06