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Solar powered IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) vegetable processing and packaging facility in the USA relies on efficient Bosch VFFS baggers to meet its quick changeover times and reliability demands.
Seabrook Brothers & Sons is a third generation family owned and operated business that processes and packages 150 million pounds of frozen vegetables per year. Located in the “Garden State” of southern New Jersey, they are ideally positioned to quickly supply the major metropolitan areas along the east coast of the U.S. with a wide range of frozen vegetables.
As a co-packer, the demands on their operation are diverse, with over 1,800 SKUs produced in their Seabrook, NJ facility. Seabrook runs two 10 hour shifts per day, six days a week and on average has 3 to 4 changeovers on each line per shift. That’s up to 288 changeovers per week across Seabrook’s 6 packaging lines. These changeovers affect their Vertical Form-Fill-Seal operations dramatically. It was the need for rapid changeovers, ability to handle a multitude of films with no tweaking or loss in speed, and basic reliable operation that lead Seabrook to purchase a Bosch SVE 2510 continuous motion bagger after trying two other VFFS bagger brands.
As William “Wes” Seabrook , Vice President Engineering, at Seabrook explained “Every machine you can make work if you have time to tinker with it. We don’t have time here. We need to set it up for the next product and run.” Just like their customers, Seabrook doesn’t carry a lot of stock, so if they are to meet their customer’s demands they need to package and ship without interruption and the Bosch machines give Wes the quick changeover and reliability he needs. “After we tried the first Bosch bagger we loved it,” notes Wes, “The ease of operation and reliability of the Bosch bagger lets us meet our customer’s demands.”
Seabrook Farms uses state-of-the-art equipment throughout their facility. The bagging lines primarily uses Gough Econ bucket elevators to feed Yamato scales above the Bosch baggers. Safeline metal detectors and check weighers on the take-away conveyor round out the bagging lines. Wes specifies this equipment to Bosch and then Bosch executes and integrates the entire line, including the scale platforms, for Seabrook. “This is a big help for us” notes Wes, “We don’t have to worry about the drop heights from the scales to the baggers, or anything else about the line integration. We know when we get it all from Bosch it will be optimized and running together smoothly.”
Operating a state-of-the-art facility isn’t restricted to Seabrook’s packaging lines. Their approach to powering their facility is also state-of-the-art. IQF processing is an energy intensive operation, so Seabrook looked for new, environmentally friendly technologies to help with their energy needs. It started with purchasing generators so they could participate in peak shaving, synchronized reserve, and demand response programs with their local utility. Then they took their energy program to the next level and installed 21 acres of solar panels next to their processing facility in Seabrook, NJ. The solar farm generates about a third of Seabrook’s total electricity requirements and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 6, 989 tones per year.
