Short Cuts

- Published: 01 August, 2006

aul Kendall always found it difficult to make enough burgers.

Paul Kendall always found it difficult to make enough burgers. His high street butcher's shop in Pateley Bridge near Harrogate sells a lot - over 2,000 last week - and making them by hand used to take his employees up to two days each week.

Things had to change. "It was just too time-consuming and we used to run out," said Kendall, who invested £4,000 in a Formatic R2200 burger machine, which he bought from Windsor Food Machinery this April.

"It was expensive," conceded Kendall, "but in a year it'll hopefully have paid for itself."

Kendall saw an advert for the machine and decided to take up the offer of a free demonstration. "I was a bit pessimistic at first, but I gave it a go and was amazed by it. It can make up to 2,000 burgers an hour, although we don't need that many at once," he said.

Kendall now uses the machine regularly and makes unusual pork and apple burgers as well as regular beef burgers. The machine works at speed and automatically papers the burgers ready for display in the shop, or to freeze for later use.

"We used to take so long making burgers but now we can be washed up and finished in three hours," he added.

He is full of praise for the machine which, he said, has increased sales and made burger making a lot easier.