Dry filling

Packaging lines have incorporated automatic checkweighers for so long the devices are easy to take for granted. But at Biocraft Corp. of Fairlawn, NJ, where powdered drugs are made and packaged for a variety of drug marketers, 100% checkweighing of all bottles is only a little more than a year old, having replaced a reli- able but more labor-intensive system of random checks.

If you want to test new packaging concepts, evaluate the latest in packaging technology or determine what new consumer packaging ideas are likely to be flowing through the American manufacturing-to-consumption pipeline in the next year or so, go West now.

Mateer-Burt's (Booth #1605) new Neotron Series 1800 servo-driven auger filler provides accurate filling within ±.45% of targeted weight. It's for use with free-flowing or non-free-flowing liquids and powders, as well as liquids, creams, pastes, viscous liquids and slurries.

The problem: In California earlier this year, a number of alert young mothers noticed something disturbingly different about the powdered infant formula they were giving their babies.