A recent article in Grain & Feed Milling Technology features Skinners Pet Foods and the company's new production lines at its dog food mill, which has been in operation since 1688.

Challenged with recent increases in demand for its petfood products, the family owned company automated its manual bagging operation with equipment designed and installed by Pacepacker Services. Following, two additional packaging lines further increased throughput to nearly 2,000 bags of petfood per hour, an almost 70 percent increase from manual bagging.

The new lines, installed after the introduction of a new extruder, consist of a C21 MultiPile Sack Placer and a Total Bag ControlSystem. The installation of the first line allowed the company to introduce a range of petfood products in plastic bags. Two out of the three lines are designed to handle bags weighing up to 15 kg, running at speeds of up to500 bags per hour. In total, the three lines handle 36 different types of products.

The final line was installed due to an increase in demand for smaller petfood bags. So, Pacepacker designed this third line as a miniature version of the initial two lines. It is capable of handling 2.5 kg bags at a throughput of 800 bags per hour.