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Combination Scale System Slashes Labor, Doubles Throughput

Beyond the expected speed- and labor-reducing benefits of a new combination scale and depositor system, benefits that came along for the ride included accuracy that significantly reduced giveaway.

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Protein is the center of the production bullseye for Sugar Creek Packing Company, a Cincinnati-based co-man/co-pack that serves both retail and foodservice industries, mostly for brands or in-store private label. Bacon was the core competency upon which the company was founded, but in the last five years, it has expanded to include a range of meats, mostly ready-to-eat, including a line of meatballs. Sugar Creek now operates six manufacturing and packaging facilities with four in Ohio, one Indiana, and another in Kansas. 

It stands to reason that in the thin-workforce era, these past five years of expansion must’ve relied heavily on automation. But Alex Hauck, VP, Engineering, at Sugar Creek, says that shift has been slow largely due to the artisan culture and variability inherent in proteins.

“I would say in the last three to four years we've become more automated,” he says. “Our industry traditionally didn't lend itself to a lot of automation, but there definitely have been advances in the last several years and we've strategically taken advantage of those opportunities. It's just with the way the labor force is these days, you really have to get into more automation. Investment in automation definitely is worthwhile, the ROI is there for sure.”

Demonstrating this shift away from hand labor and toward capital investment in machinery, Sugar Creek’s Indiana plant features a pair of packaging lines specializing in vacuum-packed frozen (IQF) meatballs that are destined for big brand distribution.

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Decision factors in scale upgrade

Multivac thermoforming machinery

“And when I say dabbled at automating, I mean we did scale the product automatically, but it was rather inefficient. We often had to supplement the automation with operators who, in some cases, would literally hand weigh the product and hand feed it into each thermoformed pocket before it was sealed,” Hauck says. 

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INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Life Sciences at PACK EXPO Southeast