How Buy It Right Helped a Greenhouse Grower Enter into the Top Seal Market

Case Study: Manufacturer

Overview

A greenhouse grower located in Leamington, Ontario, was interested in top seal packaging for their cherry tomatoes. The Grower was currently packing their tomatoes in plastic clamshells by hand.

A Crawford Produce Packaging Specialist visited the Grower’s greenhouse to discuss their goals and challenges for entering the top seal market. The Grower was in the middle of expanding and was concerned about the capital cost of a top seal machine.

The Produce Packaging Specialist introduced the Grower to the benefits of the Revolution Top Seal Machine and Crawford’s Buy It Right program. Buy It Right helped the Grower jump into the top seal market and avoid the capital cost of the new top seal machine. Since the installation of the new automated top seal packaging solution, Grower reduced packaging by 25% and reallocated labour to other key areas of their operation.

Challenge

A Greenhouse Grower was interested in top seal packaging for cherry tomatoes. The Grower was in the middle of an expansion and was concerned about the capital cost of a top seal machine. The Grower was packing their tomatoes by hand in plastic clamshells. This process was labour intensive and employees were only able to pack an average of 30 clamshells per minute.

 

Process

A Produce Packaging Specialist visited the Grower’s greenhouse to discover their goals and challenges for entering the top seal packaging market. After discovering the capital cost of the machine was a challenge for the Grower, the Produce Packaging Specialist introduced Buy It Right. The Produce Packaging Specialist revealed how the machine can be paid out based on their forecasted top seal film usage. Crawford provided the Grower with a document that outlined a proposed payment plan broken down to the price per pack. This made the decision to switch to top seal packaging an obvious choice for the Grower when compared to the cost of their clamshell packaging. The Grower was impressed with speed and automation of the Revolution Top Seal Machine and decided to move forward with the Buy It Right program.

 

Solution:

Buy It Right

Buy It Right offers businesses an alternative to traditional financing. The Buy It Right Program allows for the consolidation of new packaging equipment payments with the packaging material it uses. This allows business to avoid large capital costs through increased packaging material price. The Buy It Right program is designed to reduce financing approval times and eliminate the complications that often come when making large capital purchases.

 

Revolution Top Seal Machine

The Revolution can pack up to 200 packs per minute, making it the fastest top sealer on the market. The tooling can be changed in just 2 minutes by using interchangeable parts and a programmable interface. Tray sealing is a cost-effective and environmentally friendly packaging solution. Top seal packaging uses up to 25% less packaging material than traditional clamshell packaging.

 

Results

The knowledge-based solution has helped the Greenhouse Grower to jump into the top seal market and avoid the capital cost of the top seal machine. Since the installation of the Revolution, the Grower has seen a dramatic increase in productivity. The top seal packaging method has also reduced labour costs and packaging waste.

 

Increased Productivity

The Grower increased packaging productivity by 166.67% with rates of 80 packs per minute.

 

Reduced Packaging Waste

The top seal packaging solution has reduced plastic packaging by 25% compared to the Grower’s original clamshell packaging. This reduction in packaging is a result of eliminating the unused space in traditional clamshell packaging.

 

Reduced Labour

The Grower has reduced packing labour by 50% and reallocated employees to other key parts of the facility.

 

Increased Throughput

With less unused space per pack, the Grower increased shipping volumes and efficiency with more packs shipped per load.

 

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