Finding Food Packaging Equipment That Will Make Your Life Easier

Automating food packaging makes production go a lot faster and enables you to send out more products in a shorter time. You'll still need human employees, but when the actual work is done automatically, those employees can concentrate on quality control, rather than on repetitive physical work. For companies that have to be careful about what they spend, certain machines will be more helpful and should be among the first you try to buy.

Always Look at Pallet Wrappers

If you don't already have a pallet wrapper, get one. Make that one of the items that you should always have. Humans can stack boxes on pallets, but wrapping them quickly, and doing that over and over again for several pallets, isn't that easy. A pallet wrapper that takes care of the packaging in a few minutes will save you so much time and let your employees take care of other tasks.

What Is Your Packaging Like to Begin With?

Food packaging comes in several styles, and it's not unusual for one company to produce items packed in a couple of different ways. If you can automate only part of your product packaging, look at which one takes longer to prepare. Maybe the items packed in clamshell containers and sealed with tape take only a few minutes to complete, but another type of packaging requires heat sealing or shrinkwrapping. These last two need machinery to complete, so those are what you'd concentrate on when looking for machinery.

Which Tasks Are Easier for Humans to Do Safely?

Let's say you end up producing boxes full of products that are heavy, to the point where people can't quickly load them onto a pallet. In that case, getting machinery that would load the pallets for you is important because constant lifting isn't safe for your employees. It can be done, of course, but they'll need to be extremely careful and won't be able to do it quickly. But if your factory is set up in a way where you don't pack heavy boxes, your employees may be able to load the pallets manually, letting you look at other things that could be automated. (Your employees will still need to be careful, but it will be easier to lift and load the boxes due to their lesser weight.) 

You'll also want to look at what's easiest to clean and what leads to better hygiene regarding food safety. You may want a machine to automatically add labels to containers your employees pack themselves. If you can't fully automate your food packaging process due to the cost of the machinery, look at automating the least safe and most complicated parts of the process.

Contact a supplier of food packaging equipment for more information. 

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