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Top 10 Articles of 2025, #4: Meal Service Provider Learns that Breaking Up Doesn’t Have to be Hard

The #4 most clicked article of 2025: Homestyle Direct’s purchase of a Box Crusher from Layton Systems has improved productivity and employee welfare.

Layton Systems' Stainless Steel Box Crusher is designed to break up frozen product inside cardboard boxes before further processing.
Layton Systems' Stainless Steel Box Crusher is designed to break up frozen product inside cardboard boxes before further processing.
Layton Systems

Does anybody really enjoy dropping things? Maybe a rollercoaster or some other sort of amusement park ride would be among the exceptions, but how about something sliding through your grasp to hit the floor? Something might break, something could spill, and nobody likes dropping something on their toes. Now imagine going to work and having to drop boxes of frozen raw ingredients onto the floor to separate them and then restack the boxes. Such was the case for employees at Homestyle Direct where a pallet of two hundred cases of sweet potatoes took three team members three hours to break up by hand. But that process is a thing of the past thanks to the Stainless Steel Box Crusher.

The Stainless Steel Box Crusher comes in two models, one with a powered feed and exit, and another that's unpowered.The Stainless Steel Box Crusher comes in two models, one with a powered feed and exit, and another that's unpowered.Layton SystemsHomestyle Direct is a leading provider of nutritious and convenient meal services. Headquartered in Twin Falls, Idaho, the company specializes in offering healthy meal choices to people all across the U.S., including Medicaid and Medicare Advantage members in need of home-delivered meals. The company is especially focused on health and well-being, which made it stand out that there was this labor-intensive process to break up frozen ingredients by hand going on in its own facility.

A team member from HSD decided to fix that after watching employees perform the cringeworthy task that invited injury—not to mention the food safety element of tossing ingredients to the floor. An internet search turned up Salem, Ore.-based Layton Systems, which offers a number of quality food processing equipment solutions for a variety of industries. In this case, a YouTube video showed the capabilities of the Stainless Steel Box Crusher.

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See What’s Possible in Food Manufacturing at PACK EXPO International