Lock Inspection - The History

Lock Inspection was founded in 1949 and grew to become one of the world's leading independent supplier of industrial metal detection equipment.

The food processing and pharmaceutical industry sectors in the UK became uniquely dominated by a small group of retailers and manufacturers who demanded stringent safety and quality in their products. This environment enabled Lock to develop world-beating sensitivity and performance from their machines, and as a result they became a major supplier of detection equipment to the world's food, pharmaceutical and textile manufacturing corporations.

Sales to the food, pharmaceutical and textile industries grew annually with improvements in technology continuing to increase detection capabilities. Lock developed purpose-designed solutions for a very broad range of contamination problems, and achieved recognised leadership positions in a number of sectors such as snack-foods, pharmaceutical tablets, bakery, confectionery and conveyorised packaged foods.

By the 1970's, sales in American markets for Lock had been growing fast and, in the early-1980's Lock established direct representation in the USA. In 1992, Lock purchased Barkley & Dexter, a well-established US supplier of metal detection and weighing equipment, thus establishing a very substantial foothold in the US markets.

The end of the 1990s heralded the launch of the Met 30+ range which combined used digital technology to achieve unparalleled sensitivity and performance - thereby reasserting Locks position at the forefront of the metal detection field. Global headquarters were located in North West England - also housing manufacturing, research and development. The wholly owned US subsidiary was based in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where manufacturing also takes place to serve the American markets.

In 1999, a sales and service support office was established in the Netherlands to provide enhanced support to long-established users of Lock systems across the Benelux countries. Lock's continued growth and expansion into Europe was further enhaned in 2000 with the acquisition of its French Distributor Qualimatic - recently renamed Lock Inspection Systemes S.A.R.L.

In 2012, Lock Inspection Systems was acquired by Loma Systems, A Division of ITW, to add to the existing portfolio of metal detectors to set-up on of the world's strongest brands of metal detection equipment for the food and pharmaceutical industries.  Since merging with LOMA, the Lock Insight range of metal detectors was released to the market, which complimented Loma's existing Variable Frequency technology.