Pet Food Packagers Say Sustainability Tops List of issues

Some pretty sophisticated operations

Some of the pet food processors and packagers we talked to were from larger companies with global parents. “We’re doing a lot of remote monitoring already. I don’t think there is anything we feel we’re lacking. We have quite a bit of access on HMIs that can be sent to you on a computer...really easy to just click over when you get an alert and see if it is pressure or temperature or whatnot.  We’re a pretty new facility. We’re lucky we have where it is so easy to get a quick snapshot for trouble shooting.”

Pain points in packaging right now? One reader responded, “Managing changeover speeds. We’re always trying to get more efficient. And getting “first-time-right issues” nailed down.

Logistics and impact on pet food packaging

And what about issues related to warehouse and logistics?  “Trying to get end of line to connect to warehouse and end of line to ERP is a big interest, so seeing case studies (covering that topic) could be useful. We have WMS and ERP and they’re not necessarily standard, which makes it challenging. I’d be most interested where it’s interfacing automation and end of line with the warehouse management system.”

“Packaging lead time is a big one,” said another participant. “Both because we have a lot supply chain issues that we’re aware of and because of the difficulty of getting your raw materials, because they are overseas. I’d say supply chain and lead time are our biggest pain points.”

Read this story about the global pet food market.

Learning from both large and small firms

One last interesting observation, while pet food readers like to compare their operations directly to similar-sized companies to get a better feel for where they are at in relation to the peers, most agree that there are lessons to be learned from both large and small firms. “It doesn’t matter to me if it‘s a big brand or not, it’s all about whether its pertinent. The problem we have though with many things is (if it isn’t a big brand), Is whether it is scalable. Often it isn’t. But it does get you thinking, if we did this a bit different, would it work? Sometimes it stimulates you to think about something differently.”