A quality Finnish with Matcon design

Maustepalvelu (MP Spice Service Ltd) is a leading food consultant and supplier of food ingredients in Finland. Maustepalvelu’s services cover the full spectrum, from the initial idea through to product development, procurement, storing ingredients and manufacturing customised blends and delivery of the final product.

With 68 employees in total, the company handles more than 1000 finished items with more than 500 ingredients. In 2012, the company’s net sales were €21.2 million.

As demand increased, Maustepalvelu needed to not only meet this demand but reduce its inventory and maintain lead times. Using Matcon’s design, the company upgraded its facilities to enable the enclosed and safe handling of all varieties of recipes and ingredients with full traceability and batch integrity throughout the process.

The new system incorporates enclosed batch handling, which enables quality assurance to be monitored at every process step without interfering in the process flow.

Matcon Technology works in conjunction with the lean manufacturing principle JIT (just in time), which allows for the short lead time without adding risk to the process. This enables the end user to be confident that their order will be supplied at the correct time, with no compromises in quality.

The technology works with the Parallel Process Concept, which is a key factor in ensuring the efficiency and agility without the WIP (work in progress) inventory. It allows each process step to be reliably performed simultaneously, without holdup or interference.

Increased awareness of allergens in products - and the associated labelling requirements - has challenged traditional process design, preventing old styles from being used efficiently. To overcome this, Maustepalvelu has incorporated Matcon’s IBC (Intermediate Bulk Container) System, which handles the allergen in a controlled and safe manner. This supports the lean philosophy to run ‘any product, any time’ in a fully controlled environment