The German company Busch Vacuum Pumps and Systems, which has been in operation in India for the last ten years, is committed to developing vacuum pumps and centralized vacuum supply systems that operate with the highest possible levels of energy efficiency, enabling its customers in the meat processing and packaging industries to benefit from lower energy consumption and reduced production costs.
The first design of Busch vacuum pump was unveiled in 1963. It was designed by Karl Busch for the meat packaging industry. Since then, the vacuum pump has been adopted by many industries. Today, it has become an industry leader in worldwide vacuum technology with 30 companies and four manufacturing plants across the globe.
Ajit Singh, managing director of Busch Vacuum India, tells Packaging South Asia, “Busch Vacuum Pumps and Systems is the largest pump supplier for vacuum packaging to food, pharma or any other form of packaging. Globally, we supply around 150,000 pumps. Packaging is the single biggest industry attended by us in which food packaging is our main focus area at the moment. Busch Vacuum Pumps supplies around 50,000 to 60,000 pumps every year to the packaging industry.”
A Busch vacuum pump works by having a chamber packing machine initially extracting the air out of the food package. In the next phase, there is a form fill sealer or a tray sealer, which helps in the formation of tray and sealing by vacuum. In a food package, especially if it contains meat, it is essential to deliver the customer a package in which the food not just looks fresh but also stays fresh. So there has to be optimum presence of oxygen inside the package, which is injected with the help of these vacuum pumps. Secondary packaging and sealing are also done by these pumps.
According to Singh, “Any packaging that we are using in our daily life needs some sort of a vacuum pump in its production lifecycle. Apart from food, we are also associated with most big industries such as electronics, pharma, healthcare or automotive. We are associated with major OEMs in the Indian market and our overall turnover for the last financial year was around 5.5 million Euros. We are aiming to achieve a figure of around 7 to 7.5 million by the end of the current financial year.”
Busch Vacuum India is also attending to the SAARC countries from India. “Busch Vacuum India is attending to the market in countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Besides India, Bangladesh is one of the countries which is doing very well. This is the reason we even have a office in Bangladesh.”
Busch Vacuum India is concentrating on auditing its vacuum pump installations in India to help its customers understand the performance efficiencies of its machines better. Technical optimization of individual components can allow energy consumption to be reduced significantly without affecting reliability and robustness. At the same time, the pumping speed of individual models at high vacuum levels could be improved by these processes, which for meat product packagers means reduced cycle times and lower energy consumption. At PackTech India to be held in Mumbai in December 2016, Busch Vacuum India will focus on showcasing the objectiveness of its audit to interested visitors.
