Testimonials

“From green beans through roasting, grinding and packaging, our coffee is conveyed with Cablevey…Cablevey does it all!

-Maurice McIntosh, Apffel’s Coffee

The phrase ‘no-brainer’ is overused, but our decision to go with Cablevey really turned out to be just that.

Van Houtte was founded in 1919 in Montreal.  Today we are one of the leading gourmet coffee companies in North America.  We produce approximately 27 million pounds of coffee a year; therefore, improving our manufacturing operation is always a priority for us.

“Before going with Cablevey, we used buckets, pneumatics, belt-drive and vacuum-load systems, but they were not efficient.  The pneumatics consumed a lot of electricity, and they were noisy and messy.  Their gaskets allowed leaks and dust, and they broke a lot of coffee beans.  We decided it was time for a change.

After reviewing different solutions, we chose Cablevey based on price, installation, turn-around time and flexibility.  We installed two Cablevey units in 2005, six units in 2006 and one unit in 2007.  Our results have since improved dramatically.  Bean breakage decreased by 78%, and our electricity consumption was reduced as a result of Cablevey using a smaller HP motor than the pneumatic system.  Improvements like this go right to the bottom line.

Last year, in order to improve efficiency, we by-passed silos and transfer systems and used Cablevey to convey coffee to our grinder at “full speed”, which allowed us to increase capacity at a reasonable price. 

We especially like the ease of installation, which is important to us because it is expensive to have service personnel come into Canada, and we didn’t want to have to depend on other companies doing the installation.  We also wanted to keep using our own controls because we are familiar with them, this was not a problem, and they were easily integrated into the Cablevey system. It turned out to be quite a maintenance-free system, which is a big positive.

Now, we can update the system a little at a time at reasonable cost without disrupting our work flow.  In fact, most of the time we can install 75% of the system before actually shutting down for the change-over which can be down over a weekend.

The phrase ‘no-brainer’ is overused, but our decision to go with Cablevey really turned out to be just that.”

Jean-François Vallee, Engineering & Maintenance Manager
Van Houtte Inc.
Montreal, Canada

In the 40 years I’ve been doing business, Cablevey Company as a whole is easily in the top ten percent!

In the past we moved flake resin pneumatically although it was more or less powder. Before we tried Cablevey, we struggled with keeping product integrity. I had heard of the Cablevey system so I called them and worked out a deal using their product line. Cablevey sent someone down to install their conveyor system and it worked out great.

About a week later, one of the Cablevey guys called to see how it was working. This was Larry Van Zee and he seemed genuinely concerned about this piece of equipment and how it was working for us with this particular product! It was working fine. We called to order another system and then they quoted that for us.

We installed it ourselves. There was a little concern from Cablevey about us doing the install ourselves. We might not put it in properly. But I convinced them we were capable. We did it ourselves around October of 2001. I talked at length to Mit Williams at Cablevey about the constraints and restrictions on angles and tensions. I needed to know that since we were doing our own installation. Mit was extremely helpful and explained the technical guidelines to me. Many companies are secretive about their methods but Cablevey is open.

What I like the most about Cablevey is their straightforward thinking about equipment. They keep it simple and that is the best way to do anything. They have made their conveyor system straightforward so people can use it. I like to call this approach KISS, meaning Keep It Simple Stupid.

In the end, when you're on the production floor, the truth is that the latest high tech stuff is often difficult to operate! Also, in today’s labor market there may be a language barrier or technical-savvy limits. So if the equipment is really complicated, that makes training longer and harder.

We avoid complicated equipment. We have Cablevey, a straightforward simple system. In the 40 years I’ve been doing business, Cablevey Company as a whole is easily in the top ten percent. I’ve been doing business with Cablevey for five years now and I do not have one single complaint. I don’t know any other company I can say that about.

Danny Tuggle
Crown Technology

www.crownpavementmarkings.com

dtuggle@crownpavementmarkings.com

We chose Cablevey to move all of our whole bean and ground coffee inside our extensive Camarillo facility. It is self-cleaning, very productive and results in low breakage so we are extremely happy with the result. We have no maintenance worries. Cablevey even helped us program our customized panel. All my questions were answered promptly and accurately. I can especially vouch for how well suited Cablevey is to conveying beans and ground coffee. We use Cablevey to transport our coffee in various stages of production.
Chris Honeyman, Mechanical Engineer
International Coffee (Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf)
Los Angeles, CA

The system has surpassed our expectations, being very reliable, and requiring very little maintenance. We are now considering extending this system to give greater functionality, and are looking forward to the installation of additional systems.
Douglas White - Plant Engineer
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
Waterbury, VT USA

We roast and process tons of coffee continuously in our plant. We used Cablevey in a U pattern to feed whole bean coffee from a roaster into a group of several bins. By using Cablevey, I could get beans to the bins as gently as a belt-to-bucket system but it's more reliable and much less expensive. Our goal for whole coffee beans was less than three percent breakage but with Cablevey, we are running at less than one percent. I have five additional Cablevey systems that I’m getting ready to install for moving tea from a 10,000 pound silo using multiple discharge points. The tests ran beautifully. Cablevey is the easiest, most cost- effective way of adding additional conveyor capacity. A lot of cable systems use chain and they are so, so noisy but Cablevey is self-tensioning and much quieter. Once we put the system in, we were done!. The clear tubing gives us a sense of the fill of the product and it looks cool going by! We’ve been using this system continuously since May and we are very happy with the results. If you can use Cablevey to replace a regular bucket and a belt conveyor, do it.
Carl Teten - Engineering Manager
S & D Coffee – Concord, NC