Cranswick deploys Rockwell Automation pick-and-place robots to hit 240 cycles per minute in end-of-line packaging

Cranswick Plc, one of Britain's largest premium food manufacturers, has put a fully robotic pick-and-place system on its pigs-in-blankets production line, executing 240 individual picks per minute in a process that was performed manually until this year. The deployment, announced June 23 via PR Newswire and published on the Financial Times markets data platform, centres on autonox Delta robots controlled by Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley hardware and delivered by systems integrator CWM Automation.

The move is a concrete example of what Automation Magazine has reported as the dominant near-term capital priority across the sector: a survey by IMI's Industrial Automation division found robotics leading all other automation categories for planned investment over the next five years. Cranswick's deployment shows precisely why end-of-line food handling is the target, because it is one of the last manual operations still standing in otherwise mechanised production facilities.

What the system does and how it works

Every Christmas season, Cranswick produces millions of sausages wrapped in bacon for the UK retail market. The final packaging stage required workers to pick individual sausages off a moving conveyor and place them by hand into retail trays, a task sensitive to product orientation and throughput pressure. According to the Rockwell Automation announcement, the new system uses Allen-Bradley Kinetix VP low-inertia servo motors paired with a GuardLogix 5380 safety controller to detect the presence and orientation of each sausage in real time.

Once the vision and control layer identifies position, an autonox Delta robot performs the physical pick, corrects alignment, and places the sausage into its tray. The cycle repeats 240 times per minute. Delta robots are well suited to this kind of high-cadence, light-payload application because their parallel-arm structure keeps moving mass low, allowing faster acceleration and deceleration than articulated arms.

Rockwell Automation's EMEA north regional vice president Åsa Arvidsson noted in the announcement that the system had to operate with "remarkable precision and speed," a requirement that was met through the company's strategic collaboration with autonox Robotics. CWM Automation's managing director Mick Williams described close three-way coordination among CWM, Cranswick's engineering team, and Rockwell Automation systems consultants as essential to hitting the seasonal commissioning deadline.

Labor redeployment, not displacement

Cranswick's chief engineering manager at the gourmet sausage division, Mark Lundgren, said in the announcement that labor productivity on the line increased materially and that workers previously assigned to manual picking are now free to take on more skilled tasks or move to other production lines. That framing aligns with how food manufacturers are publicly positioning robotic adoption: not as a headcount reduction exercise but as a way to redeploy people away from repetitive, physically demanding work.

The distinction matters operationally for procurement and HR teams evaluating similar projects. A deployment structured around redeployment rather than elimination typically faces less internal resistance and can be justified on throughput and quality grounds alone, without entering contested workforce reduction territory.

Broader context: robotics at the top of the investment queue

The Cranswick deployment lands as robotics investment appetite across UK and European manufacturing is at a multi-year high. Automation Magazine's coverage of the IMI Industrial Automation survey found robotics leading all other automation categories for planned capital spending over the next five years, with interconnectivity cited as the key enabling condition. That means the Cranswick model, where a Delta robot integrates with a safety PLC, servo drives, and a vision layer over a common network architecture, is closer to the mainstream than it might appear from a single case study.

Separately, Automation Magazine reported that IntelliAM AI, a UK-listed industrial AI company, launched an end-to-end agentic AI platform in July 2026 aimed at manufacturing productivity. That development points in the same direction: manufacturers are building layered automation stacks where physical robotics at the line level is increasingly paired with AI-driven analytics and decision support sitting above it. For operations leaders evaluating end-of-line automation projects, the question is no longer whether to automate but how to architect the integration between the robot, the controller, and the data layer.

CWM Automation holds Gold-Level OEM status with Rockwell Automation, a designation that signals validated expertise in Allen-Bradley system integration. For procurement teams selecting a systems integrator for similar food-line projects, that partner-tier classification is one concrete evaluation criterion alongside delivery track record and sector experience.

What this means for your team

• Audit your end-of-line packaging steps for manual pick-and-place operations; high-cadence, light-payload tasks with consistent product geometry are the most direct candidates for Delta robot replacement.
• When scoping integrators, verify OEM-tier status with the controls vendor. A Gold-Level or equivalent designation indicates the integrator has validated expertise with the hardware stack, reducing commissioning risk.
• Structure the business case around throughput and redeployment metrics rather than headcount reduction to accelerate internal approval and reduce change-management friction.
• Evaluate whether your robotic layer has a defined data pathway to an analytics or AI platform; a standalone robot without connectivity to production data systems is a missed opportunity as manufacturers build layered automation stacks.