The Satellite Review Magazine The Satellite Review Magazine Vol 2 | Page 25

C

ase packing and handling of small
bottles appears to be a simple,
streamlined operation; however,
trends in consumer behavior and bottle
designs have introduced many challenges
for beverage and dairy companies that can
significantly affect line efficiency.

for dairies in meeting consumer demand
for these smaller, more convenient bottle
sizes is maximizing the number of bottles
in the case and maintaining the same level
of operational efficiency achieved when
case packing the traditional milk jugs and
cartons.

With more consumers on the go, there are
increasing demands for bottles that fit car
cup holders and are more convenient. In
fact, according to Packaged Facts, a division
of MarketResearch.com, 65% of Americans
say they are trying to eat healthier foods;
however, 33% of those respondents say
they don’t have the time to prepare or eat
healthy meals.

The solution has been the development of
round bottle casers, capable of loading a
broad range of bottles sizes and pack patterns. These casers are capable of handling
round bottles, as well as the traditional
gallon and half-gallon plastic jugs. This
flexibility particularly helps smaller dairies
that may have only one or two filling lines.

The fact is, today more Americans are
consuming food and beverages on-thego even if there is an increased concern
placed on healthy lifestyles. According to
Packaged Facts, last year alone, “49 million
Americans chose fast-food solutions and 41
million sought out store-made, pre-cooked
meals due to commutes, longer work days
and single and dual working parents.”
Packaging design teams are continually
developing new and unique bottle sizes
to meet these changing demands. From
a product packaging standpoint, most
beverage products are packaged using
flexible packaging and are typically packed
in corrugated cases. These corrugated cases
are sized to allow bottles to be loaded in
a uniform pack pattern. Many beverage
companies are even eliminating the case
completely, opting to bundle / shrink wrap
bottle groups and palletize directly.

Case packing challenges for
dairies
Dairies, on the other hand, must deal with
plastic cases that don’t offer size flexibility
because of their fixed dimensions. There
is a lot of wasted space when smaller sized
bottles are packed into these cases with a
straight, uniform pattern. The challenge

Case packing on-the-go snacks
Smaller packs require secondary packaging
to facilitate handling in the case packing
system. Food and beverage companies are
starting to use stand up pouches and snack
packs which are typically packed in cases
that have a removable or tear off section
for display on the store shelf. This form of
flexible, lightweight packaging has to be
handled carefully. The most common use
of case packing and handling equipment
used to handle these fragile loads are pick
and place robotic case packers or casers
equipped with a servo-controlled load
head. Servo controls and advanced PLC
systems on packaging lines make changeovers to different package sizes and pack
configurations remarkably easy with minimum downtime.

An offset pattern increases
bottles per case from 16 to 22
The latest generation of round bottle casers
allows for the creation of offset patterns to
optimize the number of bottles that can fit
within a plastic case. Drop load and load
head models are available that handle a size
range from 8 ounces to 20 ounces at high
speeds, while maintaining overall packaging line efficiency. Typically, a straight pack

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