Pushing the envelope for high-speed bagging lines
Farley Sathers Customer story
Candy manufacturer Farley’s & Sathers chose the GEA SmartPacker TwinTube C vertical bagger when it needed a high-speed solution with a small footprint, excellent reliability and a proven match between bagger and weigher performance.
Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company Inc.
The Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company Inc. is the fifth largest candy manufacturer in the US, and ranks in the top 20 worldwide. It has grown through acquisitions and manufacturers over 110 million kilograms of candy per year exclusively for the US market. The company is the market leader for candy corn, always popular at Halloween, and for candy canes at Christmas. Farley’s & Sathers have many brands including Now and Later, Brach’s, Trolli and Bobs, among others.
Kevin Walsh is Engineering Director for Farley’s & Sathers, and he oversees engineering, packaging and maintenance for the company’s six manufacturing plants. He remarks, “One of the consequences of growth through acquisition is ‘inheriting’ a machine park from many different manufacturers. So as these assets age, my strategy is to put in advantaged assets.” To be able to do this, Kevin Walsh closely followed developments in high-speed baggers. His main concern was that although he could get a machine with the bagging speed his business needed, he did not have the confidence that a multi-head weigher could match the bagger’s performance.
In 2008 Farley’s & Sathers had joint talks with GEA and MultiPond, the German manufacturer of multi-head weighing machines. MultiPond works closely with GEA and cooperated on a joint development of a bagging line comprising the high-speed GEA SmartPacker TwinTube C in combination with a MultiPond multi-head weigher. This was first shown during Interpack 2008 in Germany.
TwinTube C bagger
Teamwork helped minimize the start-up curve
To sum up his experience with the GEA baggers and MultiPond weighers, Kevin says, “All parties working as a team was absolutely critical, and the good relationship minimized the startup curve. The performance is impressive, and as we go beyond small bags and run bigger bags at high speeds, the GEA SmartPacker TwinTube C is helping us push the envelope.
