Uys Fick Engineering cc, trading as Lab-O-Mat, was established in 1996, when the current owner, Uys Fick, bought a small sheet metal fabrication company called Lab-o-mat (Pty) Ltd in Montague Gardens near Cape Town. A customer request led to the design of Lab-O-Mat’s first sachet machine for 5 litres of water. From that machine, the first 1-litre machine was developed, and sachet machines became Lab-O-Mat’s speciality. We have subsequently produced hundreds of sachet machines and supplied them to customers all over Africa.

In 2009, Lab-O-Mat relocated to the picturesque town of Philippolis in the southern Free State, South Africa. The primary reason for the move was to be more or less in the geographical centre of South Africa. This allows us to be within a day’s driving of any customer in South Africa, should they experience an emergency. The second reason was to counteract the countrywide trend of migration to the cities, which is economically disastrous for small towns in rural areas. The third reason is the pleasure of living in a town where violent crime is non-existent and petty crime only happens sporadically!