Working in partnership with Veolia Water Technologies UK (VWT UK), KP Snacks has successfully implemented a standardised approach to water treatment, management and compliance across its seven manufacturing sites. A significant achievement, this has helped to simplify many complex processes and allowed the sharing of solutions and best practice across the group.
KP Snacks, the manufacturer of familiar snack brands including Hula Hoops, Tyrrells, KP Nuts and Butterkist popcorn, has worked with Biochemica, now part of VWT UK, since 2014. VWT provides a wide range of water treatment services to KP Snacks including boiler water and effluent treatment chemicals, legionella control and risk assessment, water system cleaning and disinfection as well as water hygiene inspections.
VWT has been working with KP Snacks to standardise its processes and service delivery across each of the seven KP sites across the country. The water management processes had evolved based on the requirements of each site, including three new factories that had been acquired since the contract was awarded eight years ago. This meant there were significant variations between the different sites. While the KP Snacks team had not encountered any particular issues, it was agreed that improvements could be made through standardisation.
One of the technologies that has been introduced as part of the standardisation is an online electronic logbook. The barcode-based system allows all relevant assets and equipment on each site to be tagged. These tags are then scanned during routine service visits, simplifying the inputting of the data and results. It also enables tasks to be automatically scheduled. For example, when a shower is cleaned and disinfected as part of the legionella control measures, the next quarterly disinfection is automatically scheduled. KP Snacks site teams are also able to use the system to manage and monitor their own weekly and monthly tasks and record the results on the same platform. This not only helps to streamline the previously time-consuming processes but also enhances compliance reporting
In addition, rolling out this technology across all sites provides comparable data that can be viewed as required depending on the user. Each site team can view the collated data for its assets while those at group level, such as the health and safety team, can see the relevant data from all sites. The VWT team can also view and track all the results to help improve its service.
Alison Sydenham, Category Manager: Non-Food at KP Snacks said: “For us the benefits are clear. Firstly, it reduces the number of suppliers that we need to deal with, providing us with a single point of contact for all our water treatment and management. This has helped us to consolidate our processes and also achieve time and efficiency savings by eliminating unnecessary tasks. Finally, it has allowed us to make comparisons between sites, enabling further improvements and the sharing of best practice among teams.
“The level of service and technical support we have received from VWT has been excellent. The relationship has become a real partnership, which is exactly what you want from the organisations you work with.”
Sandra Rountree, National Contract Manager at VWT UK commented: “For businesses that have complex requirements spanning multiple sites, processes can evolve that work well for each site but may create inefficiencies when dealing with group wide considerations such as compliance and health and safety. What we have been able to achieve with KP Snacks shows the benefits of close collaboration and a long term partnership.”
