At G&S Foods, seasoned product is moved on horizontal motion conveyors, which gently transport the items to weighing and bagging or packaging.
G&S Foods
G&S Foods is a longtime contract manufacturer of snacks located in Hanover, Pa., known as “The Snack Food Capital of the World” due to the concentration of successful snack brands in the area. G&S Foods started in the early 1990s and quickly grew due to its specialty of producing items like pretzels, chips, popcorn, puffs, enrobed treats, and other snacks customized to exact seasoning and packaging specifications for clients.
As the company’s business and revenues expanded rapidly into the 2010s, so did its need for more capacity on its production lines to keep up with orders. As 2020 approached, G&S Foods’ original infrastructure was not equipped to support this exponential growth, and needed equipment that could handle a high volume and variety of snack production for its clients.
“The company tripled in size,” says Wade Fitzkee, VP of operations at G&S Foods. “We had a lot of older equipment, and the lines were small in capacity. So, as we started to upgrade those lines to match our business levels, we also made them bigger. Now I needed a bigger seasoner and bigger conveyers to move products, and when we stop to clean the lines, we needed to do that faster than before too.”
When deciding to re-configure its production lines to handle more capacity, G&S Foods looked to PPM Technologies for solutions. The snack maker purchased PPM’s vibratory conveyors, rotating seasoning and coating equipment, and horizontal motion conveyors to replace the older machines on the line.
PPM conveyors are larger and deeper than what G&S Foods used previously, meaning more snacks can be moved at once. The conveyors also can be hung from the ceiling—as you can see in the back of this photo—utilizing vertical space for production.G&S Foods
In G&S Foods’ operation, vibratory conveyors feed product into the seasoning and coating drums where the snacks are flavored, then those items are fed back out to a horizontal motion conveyor, which gently takes the product to weighing and bagging or packaging.
“The old way of doing things [with conveyors] was with vibratory motion, but that shakes the salt and seasoning off your product,” Fitzkee explains. “So, when we changed to PPM conveying, we went to horizontal motion, which helps manage and maintain the quality of the product.”
The PPM conveyors are larger and deeper than what G&S Foods had previously, which means more snacks can be processed and conveyed at once. In addition, some of the conveyors can be suspended from the ceiling, which utilizes vertical space to add capacity without encroaching on the original production line footprint below.
Ease of cleaning was another must-have for G&S Foods as it looked for new equipment. Fitzkee says the horizonal conveyors are easier to clean because “they really don’t shake or vibrate. The salt and seasoning stays on the product, and therefore it’s not all over the pan. It doesn’t make a mess that you have to clean up. And that smooth stainless-steel surface is easier to wipe down and it’s easier to sanitize. There are no cracks or crevices like you have with a belt. So overall, it’s a much more sanitary design.”
On the seasoning side, PPM’s drums and equipment help G&S Foods cut down on cleaning and maintenance due to their simple design, further reducing downtime. “IDowntime for cleaning and maintenance of seasoning equipment at G&S Foods has been reduced due to PPM Technologies’ simple design and toolless disassembly feature.G&S Foods can take those apart with no tools—that’s an asset,” notes Fitzkee. “I don’t have to worry about, ‘Hey, where’s the tool to take this apart?’ Well, I don’t need one. It just unclips or unsnaps and the pieces come apart to disassemble and clean. And then you put everything back together the same way to reassemble.”
Fitzkee is a firm believer in equipment fitting the day-to-day operation of a food processor, rather than an operation compromising its production process to fit the equipment. Fitzkee wanted the verbiage in PPM’s control panels to match the words that staff at G&S Foods use every day to communicate, rather than trying to train employees to understand the equipment operating language that comes with the machines. “They were willing to do that for us,” he says. “I think one of the things we do [at G&S Foods] that makes us successful is we want everything to be customized specifically for how we work.”
That success continues to this day, beyond G&S Foods’ original plant. In June this year, the company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new 348,344-sq-ft manufacturing facility in Hanover to accommodate the company’s ongoing growth and need to increase capacity. Inside, PPM conveyors and seasoning equipment populate the production lines, continuing their partnership into the next era of G&S Foods.
“I like to say everyone that carries a hammer is not a carpenter,” Fitzkee says. “A lot of people say they can do things, but that’s not always the case. [PPM] told me what they were going to do, and then followed through on doing it. It worked pretty well for us.”
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