Nestlé has shared a behind the scenes video about how its factory in Cumbria make 25 million sachets of coffee each week.
Its Dalston factory – which is the home of its Nescafé Frothy Coffee products – has featured in Nestlé’s Amazing Machines YouTube series, which explores the machines behind some of its biggest UK operations.
The series also aims to help make manufacturing careers more visible to people considering a career in the sector.
Presented by engineer Ruth Amos, the video explores one of the factory’s fastest packaging lines and sees Ruth meet the teams behind the machine built for speed and precision.
The UP One packaging line is able to produce up to 60,000 cappuccino sachets every hour and packs more than 25 million Nescafé sachets each week.
The process starts on site, with raw milk being dried into milk powder, blended in Dalston’s dry mix tower and fed straight into the packaging line.
In a tightly choreographed sequence, finished sachets then move from bags to pallets in under three minutes, entirely by machine.
It’s such a fast speed that the human eye can’t keep up – but high speed cameras slow the action down frame by frame to spot issues before they escalate.
Robotic arms then pack boxes and move finished pallets through to the warehouse, to make sure that when people open a box at home, they are the first to touch their sachets.
Viewers also meet Olivia Tomlinson, a degree-level packaging apprentice working on innovation and sustainability, and Heather Pieri, operational start-up lead for the high-speed UP One line, who helps bring one of the fastest systems on site online.
Martin Krohn, head of technical and production at Nestlé UK and Ireland, said: “The final videos in our Amazing Machines series have given people a unique glimpse into the vital role that cutting-edge engineering, advanced technology and talented teams play in producing brands that Britain loves.
“As our research has highlighted, whilst young people are curious about manufacturing, many don’t see it as a career option, which makes visibility like this more important than ever.
“Behind every machine are passionate, skilled people who develop and run this technology, and we’re committed to investing in our operations and workforce to create more opportunities for the next generation in this vital British industry.”
