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Automation safeguards brand, clears retail hurdles

This all-natural and organic snack manufacturer turned to new X-ray detection and checkweighing automation to help guard its sterling reputation, continue to grow into big retailers, and capture data for continuous improvement.

The company produces stand-up pouches up to 40 oz, but the largest-volume items are the 1- to 2-oz on-the-go ‘pops,’ chips, and mixes, which are formed from foil rollstock before being filled and sealed on a vf/f/s.
The company produces stand-up pouches up to 40 oz, but the largest-volume items are the 1- to 2-oz on-the-go ‘pops,’ chips, and mixes, which are formed from foil rollstock before being filled and sealed on a vf/f/s.

What started 25 years ago as a small pear farm in Mt. Hood, OR, is now a thriving organic dried fruit producer with growers and production centers in California’s San Joaquin Valley and corporate operations in Boulder, CO. The company has drawn a firm, real-food line in the sand, going all-out organic in everything it does. The certified organic farms that supply Made in Nature don’t use any synthetic preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers, and the company ensures the snacks it produces are sustainably grown, non-GMO, and free of artificial additives, colors, and flavors.

“When did ‘snack’ become a dirty word?” asks Tim Abernathy, Continuous Improvement Manager at Made in Nature. “It’s the best word in the English language, as far as we’re concerned, yet somehow we humans lost our way in seeing what food really is. Made in Nature is here to fix that. Our goal is to get back to organic foods that come from the earth and shouldn’t be messed with by adding sugars or other additives. There are a lot of labels on foods these days, warning about chemicals inside of them. Made in Nature is all-organic. Fruit is fruit, so that’s how it should be, and that’s how we maintain it.”

The product line includes dried fruit, coconut chips, and unique, bite-sized vegetable or fig snack balls that the company calls ‘pops,’ in a variety of flavors packaged in gusseted stand-up pouches. Kale chips, also in a variety of flavors, are packaged in a clamshell container, and the company offers a variety pack of 1- to 2-oz servings of all of their offerings, available in a retail- ready corrugated case.

The company operates strictly under its Made in Nature label. Pack sizes range from the smallest 1-oz dried mango bag and 2-oz snack pack, all the way up to 28- to 40-oz bags sold in Costco and other club stores.

“These one- and two-ounce bags are actually foil bags that can be easily hung or displayed in retail settings as on-the-go snacks. Those, especially the 1.4 ounce and the 1.6 ounce, are our most popular, largest-volume sizes,” Abernathy says. “The larger formats are gusseted stand-up pouches.”

The company maintains an online retail presence, both via Amazon and its own direct e-commerce channels, but its largest channels are with retailers like Walmart and Target, and wholesalers like Costco. Made in Nature’s most recent store, 7-Eleven, represents a bit of a breakthrough into convenience stores.

“In recent years, we’ve benefited from the desire to have a healthy alternative,” Abernathy says. “I have two little girls who are nine and eleven years old, so my options when I go to a convenience store used to be limited to sugary, processed snacks. Now, you’re starting to see healthier foods. Trail mixes, yogurts, or even dehydrated mango are becoming the norm. As a parent, and as somebody who is conscious about what he puts in his body, it’s a great option to have, to be able to go into a convenience store and buy organic fruit and things that are good for you instead of the usual high-sugar snacks.”

Brand security
While the wholesome, real-food trend works in the company’s favor, it still has had to deal with the juxtaposition between its barely-processed products on the one hand, and on the other the ultra buttoned-up requirements major retailers rightfully impose on their vendors. To land on Walmart, Target, or Costco shelves, the snacks had to be validated to be free of post-processing contamination, as ensured by a physical contamination elimination step at a critical control point (CCP) in the packaging line.

Also, big retailers ask for quality assurance (QA) measures to collect and report data about packages to ultimately guard against underweights.

Of course, metal detection has always been a staple on Made in Nature’s packaging lines to prevent metallic shavings from making their way into pouches. But Abernathy felt the brand needed to go a step beyond.

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