When fire goes through a food factory, the machines that survive are rarely usable — and rarely replaceable quickly either. A local bakery came to us with exactly that problem.
The fire had left their production plant standing but unfit for use: stainless steel mixing bowls — over a metre across, and together with their handling machinery weighing tonnes — along with the equipment that lifts and positions those bowls through the production process, plus conveyors and other machinery throughout the factory. All of it damaged. None of it usable for food production in that state.
Refurbish, don’t replace
Replacing plant like this is slow and painful. Large bakery machinery is built to order — lead times run to months, and a bakery without its mixing line isn’t a bakery. The better answer, wherever the underlying machine is sound, is refurbishment: strip it, clean it properly, restore the damaged parts, and put it back to work.
That’s the job we took on:
- The mixing bowls — heavy stainless fabrications, cleaned and refurbished back to a food-ready state. Stainless steel survives fire well; what it can’t tolerate is being put back into food production without proper restoration.
- The bowl-handling machinery — the equipment that moves and positions those bowls through the factory. Heavy plant, refurbished and made ready for service.
- Conveyors and other production machinery — worked through and brought back ready for reuse.
This is the kind of work our workshop is built for: repair and refurbishment backed by our own machine shop, so when a damaged component can’t be saved, we make its replacement rather than waiting on one.
Why this matters if you’ve had a fire
After a fire, the pressure comes from every direction at once — insurers, lost production, replacement quotes with eye-watering lead times. Refurbishment changes that conversation. It’s faster than replacement, it costs a fraction, and for heavy stainless plant it’s very often the technically right answer too.
We can assess fire-damaged machinery on site, tell you honestly what’s recoverable and what isn’t, and take on the full job: cleaning, refurbishment, machining of damaged components, and the mechanical work to put everything back in service. We’ve done it for a bakery; the same applies to any food production, processing or manufacturing plant.
Damaged plant? Talk to us early
The sooner damaged machinery is assessed and protected, the more of it can be saved. Ring us on 0121 544 7788, or request an urgent callback — we cover the West Midlands with on-site assessment and our own collection fleet.
