Specialty Cheese Manufacturer Relies on Waldner’s Reliability and Flexibility to Grow their Brand
A highly regarded French dairy company, manufacturing specialty cheese products, was seeking to grow its business in the North American market. The brand’s core products on the shelf are recognized as superior quality, specialty cheese spreads. Their goal was to grow these core products as well as develop and introduce several new products into the market.
The company’s desire was to have their entire range of spreadable products with varying package types and special features all packaged on the same machine with quick changeover, while maintaining an Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of greater than 95%. With previous filling and sealing equipment, the company had experienced poor machine efficiencies due to significant maintenance downtime, long changeovers, and lack of machine performance. With their high-quality brand, desire for flexibility and reliability, they knew they wanted a Waldner DOSOMAT filler and sealer.
The Customer Knew The Importance of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
And had to factor in all their operational headaches from the past when they made their capital equipment decisions. Initially, the company presented seven different package format sizes (varying shape or diameter), each with different product filling needs and closure methods. The cost of changeover times from one product to another was a burning issue that needed to be reduced. They also wished to reduce the frequency of the cup and lid replenishing by an operator, which ergonomic Waldner cup and lid magazine buffer systems easily accomplish. The company’s range of spreadable products required all of the following capabilities: cold and hot fill, whipped and non-whipped, with and without particulates for varying fill volumes. The filling system needed to be CIP, which would significantly reduce planned downtime that the customer was currently experiencing. For their newer products, they wished to add a dry topping, providing a fresher appearance and adding interesting new spices and flavors to their classic recipes. For preserving the product over its desired shelf life, the packages needed to have a headspace with less than 2% oxygen. The high performance challenge is being able to guarantee the 2% oxygen at 40 cycles/minute. The primary closure method for the various cups needed to be roll-stock sealing of film or foil. The secondary closure required for this machine was placing both roll-on lids and press-on lids, depending on the cup format. The machine needed to be well designed for operator safety, easy sanitation due to microbio-clean design, and required a 3A certification for dairy environment operations. With a small footprint, high capability, and quick changeover, one can imagine the challenge of developing and supplying this kind of solution.
The Waldner DOSOMAT solution provided the increased flexibility and reliability the customer required
The Waldner Rotary DOSOMAT system proved to be the flexible machine with high reliability and the small footprint that the customer was looking for. In the beginning, the seven cup formats were not required, so the customer settled on 3 formats to keep the additional costs at a minimum. Depending on the product viscosity, each product could run on the Waldner machine between 25 and 40 cycles/minute, providing an output range of 75 to 120 cups/minute and meeting the customers production demand needs. The filling system handled both hot and cold cheese with or without particulates. The combination of the Waldner DOSOMAT hopper and compensation cylinder filling system provided the flexibility to handle the regular spreads and the whipped cream cheese spreads that require more pressure control during filling.
Fast, efficient product changeover...
The servo technology in concert with Waldner engineering design allows for a smooth, effortless extraction of the various cheeses which results in consistent and precise fill volumes. There is no overfilling to compensate for inconsistent fills, as the customer had seen with prior equipment. For changing between different cheese products, the customer can clean out the filling system using a 30 to 60-minute automated CIP cleaning cycle. This is a highly flexible machine for product and cup format changeovers, completed in under 30 minutes. In order to guarantee 2% oxygen, this meant that the Waldner machine would need to be reliably below 1% oxygen in the cup headspace. With some trial and error, the Waldner team developed a gas insertion solution with roll-stock sealing that achieved sub 1% oxygen levels consistently at 120 cups/minute. The Waldner DOSOMAT machine provided the customer with 50% more output on their existing products, as well as the capability and the flexibility to run newly developed products for the market. The quality and reliability of the Waldner DOSOMAT make it the workhorse machine for this dairy factory.
This customer is just one example of how Waldner has succeeded in installing over 3,400 machines worldwide. Waldner has decades of experience with filling and sealing applications for dairy products and welcomes challenging assignments. When customers have a high level of confidence in their equipment, it allows them to focus their attention on other aspects of their business, like selling their products and developing new products. This specialty cheese manufacturer relies on Waldner’s reliability and flexibility to grow their brand in North America.
About Waldner
WALDNER, located in scenic Wangen im Allgäu, Germany is a global market leader in the field of fully automatic filling and sealing machines for packaging a variety of consumer goods from food to beverage for over 100 + years. With over 1,300 employees and many more all over the world, Waldner’s expertise in rotarya and inline filling and sealing machines is the reason Waldner is proud to be a global supplier to companies such as Kraft, Nestle, Unilever, General Mills, Mars, Master Foods, Ameriqual and Initiative Foods. Waldner separates itself from the rest by customizing their machines according to their customers’ needs. With the use of various sterilization methods and servo technology, Waldner guarantees that they not only produce a Grade A machine, but deliver a complete solution that will effectively do the job according to each client’s unique application requirement.
- Machines operate at very high (95%) OEE Ultra-precise filling accuracy with almost zero product loss, minimizing "product give-away”
- State of the art drive systems, variety of dosing & closing systems
- Excellent sales, service & parts support
- More than 3,000 DOSOMATS delivered worldwide
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