The pandemic gave a big boost to automation in British food processing, according to the head of a robotics trade association.
Sales of individual robots to food & beverage plants were up 21% in 2021 over 2020, and up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019. The food & beverage sector was behind only the automotive industry in robot purchases in Britain, according to the head of the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA).
“Encouragingly, the Food and Beverage sector experienced 100% growth in first half of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019,” BARA said in a statement. “This, perhaps, demonstrates the efforts of the sector to meet increasing demand, while at the same time deal with labour shortages caused by Brexit, and the safety constraints caused by the onset of COVID-19.”
Automation is moving further up the line, from secondary packaging to primary packaging and processing, the head of BARA says. Labor issues caused by the pandemic and Brexit, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, are a big motivator for automation.
