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Winery harvests success with new machinery

New machinery helps Beringer Blass Wine Estates reduce breakage and damage to its glass wine bottles, as well as increase line efficiency.

A new conveyor (inset) moves cases of wine to a new palletizer and wrapper installed October 2001.
A new conveyor (inset) moves cases of wine to a new palletizer and wrapper installed October 2001.

At the St. Helena, CA, facility of Beringer Blass Wine Estates winery, palletizing, conveying, and stretch wrapping equipment was causing costly breakage and product loss. So engineers at the Napa-based winery decided to replace the aging equipment.

As they explored their options, it wasn’t just gentle handling they were after. They also required speeds of up to 35 cases/min.

They found what they needed in a case accumulating system and palletizer from Alvey Systems (St. Louis, MO) and a stretch wrapper from Cousins Packaging (Tracy, CA).

“The old machines were really starting to show wear,” says John Clark, technical supervisor at Beringer. “We had a lot of breakage and damage to our product. Since we’ve updated the machines, damage has gone way down. That was probably our biggest reason behind buying new machinery. It was just to the point where it wasn’t worth putting more money into the old equipment, which was used when we bought it. We needed to buy new ones.”

Onto the pallet

“We’ve already begun saving money with the new palletizer,” Clark says. “We’ve saved just due to the fact that we are able to produce the capacity that we need to. Another thing that really helps the people here is that we can input Spanish language for the controls and trouble-shooting screens. If we were to have a problem, that would really help not only the operators, but also our mechanics.”

The new Alvey 881 was installed in October 2001. It replaced a unit that had been there for years, Clark says.

“We’re upgrading our facility constantly,” he continues. “It was time for a new palletizer. And we needed to improve our line in other areas since we are now capable of filling anywhere from 350 to 400 bottles/min. We needed a palletizer that could keep up with that output.”

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INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Food Products at PACK EXPO Southeast