The Baking Company of Ukiah, a Division of Pamela’s Products, in Ukiah, California, specializes in the production and packaging of natural and gluten-free cookies, crackers, snack bars and baking mixes for retail and foodservice customers. In selection of its packaging (both clear and foil-based roll stock film from multiple materials suppliers), the company emphasizes eco-friendly options, such as recycled and recyclable materials printed with soy inks.
Some weight control and product damage difficulties were occurring on the bagging line for cookies and crackers. Alana Rouse, vice president of operations for Pamela’s Products, says, “Through some fellow cookie and cracker manufacturers, we were hearing good things about the Model XYS08 continuous-motion vertical form/fill/seal bagging equipment from Triangle Package Machinery Co. coupled with the Yamato ADW-A-0314S scale from Yamato Americas. We decided to evaluate the equipment in terms of usefulness for our operations.”
Engineered to be well-suited for free-flowing products and incorporating automation controls and servo motors from Rockwell Automation, the Triangle XYS08 partnered with a 14-head Yamato weigh scale features form/fill/seal speeds up to 150 bags per minute with fast bag size/style changeover capability. Bag sizes may range from 2.5” wide to 8” wide. The machinery can accommodate both supported and unsupported films. Bag sealing options include heat seal and ultrasonic cold seal. The vf/f/s machine also provides the benefit of being relatively compact with a footprint of 56” x 80” x 60” high.
Baker’s bottom line
The new equipment was installed in November 2016. Rouse reports, “Triangle helped us custom-design the set-up we needed and sent a tech to help with start-up and training. Installation of the new bagger/weigher system made an immediate impact on the amount of finished packages we could produce. Right now, we are using the system for 1-oz. to 9-oz. packages, and they are high-quality, high-integrity. On average, we are running about 45-50 bpm for the 9-oz. bags as opposed to our previous rates of 25 bpm. So we’ve doubled bagging speeds.
“In addition, product and packaging material waste are now at an all-time low, and we’ve also been able to reduce labor costs by re-assigning a couple of employees from the packaging line to other duties. We estimate accumulated savings to be approximately $100,000 per year.”
Rouse concludes, “I would recommend the Triangle XYS08 bagger and the Yamato ADW-A-0314S scale to other companies. The combination is performing very well for us. We have had great customer support. The machine is easy to operate, and we are extremely happy with the purchase.”
