Facility
After over 2 year of planning, preparation and building, our state of the art facility encompassing all of the service areas below, opened it’s doors in Spring 2015. The building is an evolution and embodiment of all the experience and knowledge that we’ve gained over the last 20 plus years, in which time we have had several manufacturing sites. This means that all the process flows and efficiencies from production and admin, to product development and cleaning have been optimised and matched to todays rigorous standards and requirements on both the regulatory and quality side to the commercial side.
With further room on site for expansion in the future, we can increase capacity and add further capabilities again in the future with minimal disruption.
Laboratory
We have a large, spacious and well equipped lab and test kitchen that is used for both product development work and quality testing and checking of finished products. Part of the development process for new products involves customers visiting for tasting sessions in the lab which is well suited for a comfortable day of trials and taste panels. All of the production processes we carry out at Calleva can be replicated on a small scale in order to accurately test products and ensure compatibility prior to increasing volumes to full production size batches. Organoleptic, physical and some chemical testing is also carried out in house in our laboratory and we have close relationships with some chosen external partners for microbiological, nutritional, banned substance, accelerated shelf life and other specialist testing services
Powder Blending
Calleva’s Powder production plant incorporates several pharmaceutical spec blenders to mix a wide range of powdered ingredients in a gentle and low energy way, as well as providing a very flexible range of blend volume sizes. In addition to the blenders, all powder production lines incorporate sieving and metal detection for complete piece of mind and are connected to our bespoke computerised batch recipe control system for complete traceability of all raw materials through the use of bar coded product labels and a centrally controlled order system that only permits the correct product and batch number to be utilised by our highly trained and dedicated production staff
Liquid Processing
Our bespoke designed liquid mixing and heat treatment plant allows smaller than usual production runs of specialist liquid products, such as energy gels. We’re not a soft drink producer so please don’t expect us to produce a hundred thousand litres of liquid beverages a day for bottling-it’s all specialist and dedicated plant for our core competencies of sports gels, syrups and specialist liquids. The plant has full CIP capabilities in addition to hot or cold filling of finished product in to bulk containers. as per our powder production, every single ingredient used and product produced is tightly controlled by our computerised and barcoded batch management system.
Packing and Filling
Our filling lines are housed in dedicated production rooms featuring positive air pressure to ensure risk of cross contamination is minimised and that the filling environment is completely clean, hygienic and comfortable and efficient to work in. We have several horizontal form fill and seal machines for sachets and mini pouches as well as semi automatic pouch and bag fillers for larger format powder products. Our capabilities will be further expanded with the addition of stick pack machines, planned for mid-2016.
Warehouse and Storage
raw material ingredients are stored in our large, clean internal warehouse, with space maximised through use of high bay racking. We have separate areas for the storage of finished products, allergens (milk and soya as Calleva are a nut free site), and organic products in accordance with our BRC accreditation and internal quality management system. Once ingredients are opened for use in production we also have a dedicated area for secure storage of any partially used bags that adjoins our dispensary room for easy point of use access during subsequent weighings.
Packaging items and consumables are stored separately to all raw materials and finished products, for both cleanliness and product safety.
Offices
Our modern and spacious offices create a hub for all of the support services necessary to back up our business, from sales, purchasing and quality, to maintenance and management. In addition we have a board room for large meetings and presentations and a range of options for smaller meetings, even including a completely private office for customer use during extended lab trial days or longer meetings.
