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Weigher/bagger/labelers shine at Golden Gem

While on-line label printing simplifies inventory, new combination scales and automatic baggers have increased productivity and accuracy for this Florida orange grower.

Automatic bagger (right) produces finished packs shown below
Automatic bagger (right) produces finished packs shown below

About five years ago, Golden Gem Growers ceased using paper headers or draw strings on its net bags of oranges for retail sale. In place of these conventional packaging styles, the Umatilla, FL, grower has relied on net bags with brightly decorated film running from top to bottom on the front and back of the net bag.

In addition to giving the finished package a much more appealing look, this approach cut costs compared to paper headers. That's because the equipment typically used for bags with paper headers is more labor-intensive than the highly automated weigher/bagger combinations Golden Gem uses for its packages.

As appealing and cost-effective as the film-decorated bag is, this package had one liability: The film strips had to be preprinted with fruit variety, weight and a bar code. That meant having to inventory dozens of preprinted film rolls. And as Paul Leonard, packing house manager at Golden Gem Growers, puts it, "It cost a lot to stock that film."

Golden Gem management dodged the preprinted film inventory cost by contracting with Fresh Mark (Mascot, FL) to take care of packaging for them. Fresh Mark purchased and installed in Golden Gem's Umatilla plant two combination scales. Each scale feeds two baggers. All four baggers are equipped with thermal-transfer print-and-apply pressure-sensitive labelers, so variable information can be printed on-line.

"It's brought us more throughput and more accuracy without having to stop and change preprinted film for every citrus variety we bag," says Leonard.

Two Spanish manufacturers supplied the weighers and baggers that were installed in the Golden Gem plant in September '98. The PA-38 weighers come from Daumar, represented in the U.S. by Daumar U.S.A. (Miami, FL). The baggers were manufactured by Giro, represented in the U.S. by Giro Pack, Inc. (Miami, FL).

While the baggers are capable of producing bags weighing anywhere from 2 to 10 lb, most of what Golden Gem markets are 4-, 5- and 8-lb bags. Each bagger has a maximum speed of 30 bags/min, but the speeds routinely achieved at Golden Gem are not quite as high.

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