STRETCHWRAPPING
(From Left) Elmira Pet Products plant engineer Joe Samson, and PACKPRO Systems’ territory manager John Cloutier and packaging equipment specialist Tony Rocha.
safety always a top priority. To solidify its industry leadership credentials, in 2012 Elmira Pet Products became the first dry pet-food manufacturer in Canada to become BRC (British Retail Consortium)-certified for food safety. This standard is recognized as a GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) benchmark food safety program providing a framework to manage product safety, integrity, legality and quality, and the operational controls for these criteria, in the food industry. In 2016, Palletized bags of dog food about to be shrinkwrapped by a Robopac Helix 3 automatic rotary arm stretchwrapping unit purchased Canadian distributor PACKPRO Systems. the company marked its fifth straight year of BRC certification by earning the highest possible “AA” rating. Since 2014, the company allocated significant capital resources to various Samson. food safety initiatives, and its processing infrastructure, including production To make the products, a carefully selected variety of dry, liquid and fresh ingre- and packaging equipment. This included a major expansion to the mixing plant, dients are added to one of the plant’s five extrusion systems. The extruder cooks production facility, packaging equipment, facility processes (air, water, steam and the product and feeds it through specialized die plates to achieve the desired wastewater treatment), as well as additional office space for a growing employee shapes. base. Elmira Pet Products controls all the essential steps in pet food production inThe mixing plant was upgraded and refurbished in 2014, adding a brand new cluding product development, ingredient sourcing and procurement, dry mix, 13,000-square-foot ingredient warehouse and receiving area. In addition, 18 dry extrusion, packaging and warehousing, fully managing the process from product ingredient silos were added to the site, bringing the total to over 100 such silos. concept to completion. “We also added new hammer mills to create a better grind to further increase This control from start to finish provides Elmira the ability to ensure the high- our product quality,” says Samson. “We then updated our existing equipment, est quality standards are maintained throughout the entire process with food support systems and proprietary software to better increase our automation and tracking capabilities.” This investment included a special facility housing a fifth extrusion system and a fresh ingredient handling area, as well as employee welfare space, according to Samson. “Pet food follows the same type of rigorous food safety requirements as is seen in the human food industry, with our operators keeping strict documentation of all recipes produced,” Samson relates. The Elmira Pet Products plant currently operates eight packaging lines to accommodate the numerous bag size and specific material requests of the company’s customers. “We offer pet-food bags ranging from trial-size pouches up to 20-kilogram polybags with numerous closure types, including: press-to-close, Velcro, and slider closures,” says Samson. “We also have six main bag options, as well.” The product-specific bag formats include: • paper self-opening satchel block bottom bags; • paper pinch-bottom open mouth bags; • plastic stand-up pouches; Elmira Pet Products’ own Nutram brand cat and dog dry food bags are supplied by Peel Plastic Products, a producer supplying • plastic side-gusseted bags; much of the paper and plastic bags used by the company.
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CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2017