Mount Rose weighs gains from vf/f/s equipment

Two custom vertical form/fill/seal machines help frozen pasta co-packer Mount Rose Ravioli handle the output from processing equipment, increase its speeds and save more than $200ꯠ/yr through reduced labor and product giveaway costs.

A side view of one of Mount Rose?s two vf/f/s machines (left) shows the scale buckets that feed a custom-designed discharge hopp
A side view of one of Mount Rose?s two vf/f/s machines (left) shows the scale buckets that feed a custom-designed discharge hopp

Low ceilings at the headquarters plant of Mount Rose Ravioli in East Farmingdale, NY, make it impossible to install towering vertical form/fill/seal machines topped with combination scales. Yet the co-packer/manufacturer needed to add packaging equipment to keep up with newly expanded production capabilities for its frozen tortellini, ravioli, cavatelli and gnocchi.

The solution? A pair of scale/bagger systems from Triangle Package Machinery (Chicago, IL). Purchased through Eastern Packaging Associates (New Milford, CT), one machine packs tortellini, the other ravioli, cavatelli and gnocchi.

Triangle custom-designed a sloped and partitioned discharge hopper between scales and baggers that reduces the height of equipment compared to standard vf/f/s machines where the same components are usually stacked vertically. Triangle tells Packaging World that Mount Rose is the first in the frozen pasta business to employ the sloped hopper.

Additionally, the bagger comes with legs 51/2" shorter than usual. These changes combine to produce a system that tops out at 10'6" H, meeting the needs of Mount Rose's "vertically challenged" plant.

Besides fitting into the plant's cramped quarters and keeping pace with production capacity, the equipment stands tall for several reasons. Key among them is that the machines:

* Double packaging speeds to 55 to 65 packs/min, depending on bag size,

* Save $100ꯠ/yr in labor costs, and

* Reduce giveaway by as much as 0.7 oz/pack, saving $109ꯠ annually.

Production dictates purchase

Before adding the custom packaging systems, Mount Rose relied on two packaging lines. Semi-automatic equipment was used to bag tortellini, the highest-volume product. It consisted of a 10-head scale that deposited the pasta into pre-made bags picked manually from a wicket. Workers then placed filled bags onto a separate band sealing machine. That equipment will be used until the company's inventory of pre-made bags is depleted, which is expected to occur by November.

For its three other pasta products, Mount Rose had used both an outdated vf/f/s system that's now up for sale, and the wicketed bag/band sealer. For the 1-lb bags, both of those systems functioned at speeds ranging from 25 to 32 packs/min.

"We were running five machines that make tortellini, and our weighing system couldn't keep up," recalls Tom Minuto, one of several co-owners of the third-generation family business. "We were moving more product into the scale than it could handle. We wanted it to do thirty weighments a minute, but its capacity was about twenty-five, so we were getting inaccurate product weights."

The combination of increased product demand and concerns for tortellini packaging speed, giveaway and labor costs helped prod Mount Rose into buying new equipment. The decision to purchase Triangle equipment, he says, was made primarily "at the recommendation of some pasta marketers that we co-pack for." Distributor Eastern Packaging offered key advice, as well.

"We purchased the two Triangle machines at the same time, but installed the first one for tortellini," says Minuto. "Once we had that machine running, it proved that it could more accurately weigh product." Not only did it provide more accurate fills than Mount Rose's previous equipment, it also filled more quickly. So much so that Mount Rose purchased a sixth tortellini machine that increased its capacity to make that product by about 10ꯠ pounds per day. This Triangle machine now packs nine million lb/yr.

Two months later, in January '98, the second Triangle was up and running. It packs some 4.5 million lb of ravioli, ricotta cavatelli and gnocchi annually.

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