Ruth Evans MBE, CEO of BFBi, recently visited Dirk Parker of K-Flex Beverage UK.
Bevex (the well-known brand name for pythons and tubing products including tap and trace cooling assemblies and a range of ancillary products for the Beverage industry worldwide) is owned by multinational, privately owned L’Isolante K-Flex.
For over 30 years K-Flex products have been recognised in the insulation market for their high standards of innovation. quality and performance, playing an essential role in energy consumption control and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the companies CO2 footprint year on year.
With a group turnover of £630 million (£80 million of organic growth in 2022), recent growth within the group has been achieved via the expansion of the manufacturing plant in Poland to 1.4 million sq. ft.
K-Flex Beverage UK, based in Coalville, Leicestershire, employs 54 members of staff. Having invested £1million during 2023, the company is investing a further £1million on plant and equipment in 2024 to support the growing requirements of their customer base.
Ruth was given a tour of the factory where a full range of products were being manufactured in the recently extended factory and warehouse facility, including LDPE tubing for the non-food market (incorporating the recycling of “waste” LDPE from previous production runs) plus their new spiral wound beverage Python. The new coated and spiral wound Python which ensures ease of installation and a tough outer skin to protect the insulation, is being released into the market now and will be a market leading product. As expected, all production runs are fully traceable in real time for quality control and raw material batch traceability.
Dirk noted that K-Flex was the only manufacturer in the world supplying insulation, tubing, and pythons via their own facilities, ensuring security of the supply chain. When asked if this security of supply could be compromised, Ruth was assured that by having duplicated manufacturing in both the UK and Poland for the full range of Beverage products and associated raw materials, this eliminated any risk to the supply chain for their customer base.
Asked what K-Flex Beverage was doing to address the environmental sustainability agenda, the answer was “watch this space”, with K-Flex finalising work on new products which would address both energy and environmental challenges currently encountered with dispense installations.
Dirk also outlined K-Flex’s plans for a meeting/training centre and Control Conditioning Room, where pythons and trace cooling assemblies will be performance tested under different environmental conditions.
Two of K-Flex’s new products will be launched and demonstrated at Brau Beviale, so please visit them in Hall 5, stand 205.
For further information about K-Flex Beverage please visit their website www.kflex.com
Or email uksales@kflex.com
