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Climbing the ladder of f/f/s technology

Beginning a decade ago, Calhoun Bend Mill started with simple packaging equipment, went through a rebuild upgrade and now has two new vf/f/s machines for bags of its food mixes.

One of Calhoun's new vf/f/s lines automates packaging from roll stock to manual case packing. Some examples of Calhoun Bend Mill
One of Calhoun's new vf/f/s lines automates packaging from roll stock to manual case packing. Some examples of Calhoun Bend Mill

After 10 years of steadily upgrading its packaging, Calhoun Bend Mill operates two automatic vertical form/fill/seal machines that pack an extensive variety of products into both retail and foodservice sizes, from 3 oz up to 5 lb. The Jonesville, LA-based company now sells nationwide, and has parlayed the β€œSouthern goodness” of its recipes into a fast-growing business.

Its packaging materials and methods of packaging have changed a lot over the last decade, since it bought its first moderate-volume f/f/s machine. β€œOur first machines were relatively inexpensive and simple to operate,” says Jesse Calhoun, the company vice president who oversees the plant’s production. β€œThose machines didn’t have a lot of β€˜bells and whistles,’” he says, β€œbut they were easy to operate and maintain.” Output of these machines eventually reached 30 bags/min, he says, for the popular sizes of bags, mostly 8 oz.

When his contact for those machines, Robert Clary, joined J&J Mfg. Co. (Beaumont, TX), the close relationship with Jesse continued. Calhoun liked the machine concepts that J&J had developed, and about two years ago, the company had one of its first machines rebuilt by J&J.

β€œThey replaced the old controls with new electronics and added other components that improved our output and package consistency,” Jesse reports.

More output needed

As the Calhoun business expanded, Clary showed Jesse the new Mira-Pak Saturn 12 machine developed by J&J. J&J had bought the rights to the Mira-Pak name and machines two years ago from a company that had concentrated on rebuilding the 3κ―  Mira-Pak machines that had been sold by the original company for 27 years.

After seeing the new machine in operation, Calhoun purchased the new Mira-Pak Saturn, trading in its old machine in the deal. It continued to operate the rebuilt machine until late last year, when, after being demonstrated at Pack Expo 2000, another new Mira-Pak was delivered and installed at Jonesville, the company again trading in the older machine.

Both new vf/f/s machines were installed under auger fillers from AMS (Malvern, PA) that had been used with the older equipment. The second Mira-Pak was also equipped with a SmartDate web coding system from Markem (Keene, NH). Jesse Calhoun liked it so much that he had another retrofitted onto the first Mira-Pak.

β€œWe looked at a lot of other machines, especially every time we went to Pack Expo,” Jesse explains. β€œSome other vertical form/fill/seal machines are high-dollar systems, and they have their place. The Mira-Pak is a fine machine, too, and it really fits our needs. Plus, a lot of the maintenance can be done by in-house because of the simplicity of the machine design. But it still has a lot of features that you find on the more costly machines.”

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