Are you a pet food startup? Have you been looking for the perfect packaging machinery technology for your pet food product? Then this guide is perfect for you.
In the journey towards acquiring packaging machinery technology for your pet food business, you have to take into consideration and evaluate various factors. From your product, actual budget, vendor validation, and plant size capacity. But do you consider from the beginning the bag format, weight required, or facility environment? These are just a few variables to factor in when making your decision.
In fact, at Maxpack, our data shows that pet food businesses usually start looking for equipment in a broad manner such as ‘Pet Food Machinery’ vendors. When instead they should start by looking up the specific type of vendor they need given their specific requirement. For example, a better way to start looking for a vendor if your product is made with a doypack or stand up pouch would be by searching “Pet food packaging machinery for doypack pouch with zipper”.
However, if you stumbled upon this guide, we’ll do our best to provide you with all the information you need to make a decision and make your vendor search easier or at least less difficult.
Let’s jump right in.
PRODUCT TYPE
First thing you need to have in mind is the type of pet food product/s you have.
- Pet food pellets: pellets are the most common type of pet food product. The standard bag format for this product is a side gusset, flat bottom, bag made by a VFFS. You should consider applying an Innolok zipper pouch and re-seal for later use and maintain the product quality for a longer period of time. This also eliminates the hassle consumers face of having to use another type of container, such as buckets with lids.
- Cookies: If your product is a cookie or treat, then we recommend using a doypack (stand up) pouch or an Innolok zipper pouch given the ability of both pouches to grab a treat, and re-seal for later use and to maintain the product quality for a longer period of time.
- Barf: This trendy pet food BARF or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, goes best in a doypack (stand up) pouch or sachet type pouch to maintain the product quality.
BAG TYPE
If you´d like to do additional research on the types of bags to use, see a list of your options below:
- Pillow
- Gusset
- Flat bottom
- Innolok zipper and EZ-Stand (If you haven’t heard of this format, stay tuned for our next content piece in which we will dive into this trendy new pouch format)
- Doypack premade stand up pouch
- *Click here to see a case study using gusseted/flat bottom bags for pet food pellets.
WEIGHT
Next up is the weight format you will be using. This will depend on your market research and/or operational capability. Based on our research and client requirements we’ve concluded that for the pet food industry the most used formats are the following:
- 500g
- 2 kilograms
- 4 kilograms
BAG DIMENSIONS
Another important feature of your product to keep in mind is the dimension of your bag. As with weight, the dimensions will depend on your market research and/or operational capability.
- Industry-standard pet food bags are between 177mm or 7” inches to 320mm wide or 13.8” inches
ENVIRONMENT
An important aspect to keep in mind and that many forget when choosing equipment is the type of environment that your plant has. Depending on the environment of your plant, some parts of the equipment might need to be adapted. Below we’ve listed some standard types of environments for you to bring up to your vendor:
- High temperature
- Cold temperature
- Humid environment
- Dusty environment
- *Usually, pet food facilities tend to be high temperature, dusty environments that require equipment made to withstand this type of environment. Not many vendors have experience working with tough environments and should be validated.
FILLER
The best filler for your operation will depend on your type of product and/or required speed. See below our recommendation for fillers:
- Multihead Weigher Scale: If your pet food product comes in the form of pellets or cookies and you want to go at a medium to higher speed range, we would recommend for you to go with a Multihead Weigher Scale.
- Bowl conveyor: if your pet food product is BARF, a bowl conveyor might be best given the consistency and various ingredients the product might have.
- *To keep in mind: If your pet food product comes in the form of pellets or cookies and you want to start your operation at a lower to medium speed range, you can use a bowl conveyor, and once your demand increases you can upgrade to a Multihead Weigher Scale.
SECONDARY EQUIPMENT
Below we’ve listed some secondary equipment we recommend for you to look up as well that complement your packaging technology:
- Scale platform: a platform for multihead weigher scale
- Collection table: collect the final product
- Product elevators: will take the product and feed it to the product filler
- Checkweigher: weighing redundancy to increase accuracy
- Semi-automatic palletizers: plastic wrapping palletizer
In summary, it is clear that when it comes to pet food packaging machinery the numerous variables that have to be taken into account as well as the necessity to maintain a balanced budget so companies do not overspend demand, requires that companies look for vendors that are a correct fit and have experience in the industry.
Maxpack has been working with leading international pet food brands for the packaging of premium retail formats as well as bulk formats.
To check out trends in the pet food consumer packaging goods (CPG) and main expectations from the industry in terms of packaging machinery click here to see a previous content piece in which we dove into these.
For more information on Maxpack, please contact us at sales@maxpackmachinery.com or give us a call at +1 (305) 424-1661. You can also visit our online machinery catalogue by clicking here.
To check out other segments within the food industry that we can create solutions for click here.
Also, check out the new Exclusive Offers section of our website for exclusive loyalty and financing programs you may qualify for.