July’s focus was on potato handling and engineering technology.
We started the day at Tong in Spilsby.We were given a tour of the site and heard presentations from Edward Tong. He spoke about the innovation that has taken place in many different areas, such as changes in cleaning from being shook by hand to their Easyclean system, design developments from sketches through to render which enables them to show the grader animated in a grower’s yard.
We were shown the flat bed laser cutter and how a flat plate can be made into any shape, aided by the use of indents in the steel for use when putting it together. They demonstrated this to us by giving us all a flat sheet which we folded to make an aeroplane.
In the afternoon we went to Grimme in Swineshead where they told us the history of the company, starting from being a blacksmith in 1860, through the foundations of Grimme in other countries to where they are now, present in over 110 countries in the world. We were also shown a video on damage prevention and had a quiz at the end.
Bryonie