On 5th December 2023, members of The Midlands Packaging Society visited Belvoir Farm soft drink production and packaging site at Bottesford, to the east of Nottingham.
After a brief introduction to the Company the visitors were shown around the extensive site which includes the preparation and blending of the ingredients, all of which are natural and provide the basis for an extensive range of cordials and traditional soft drinks such as ginger beer and an excellent effervescent elderflower drink.
Elderflowers are still grown on the neighbouring farm which is adjacent to the Belvoir Castle Estate. The Company has a long history of growing and harvesting a variety of soft fruit on the farm and turned to processing and bottling their products after they were faced with an excess of fruit during a very productive summer a few decades ago.
A tour of fully automated filling and bottling line was particularly interesting, especially in relation to the pasteurising process and the labelling and packaging process that included robotic handling and boxing as well as palletisation.
Our thanks to Frank Fitzgibbon and Jakob Wojajczyk who made our visit to Belvoir so informative.