Delicacies for four-legged friends - perfectly filled with Dosomat from Waldner
Pets have grown close to our hearts. They enrich our lives every day and therefore deserve the utmost attention and affection. This also includes providing them with high-quality food. Retailers offer an almost unmanageable selection of products for this - from dry chews and treats to wet food for dogs and cats. To ensure that the latter is packaged quickly and efficiently, Dosomat filling, sealing and packaging machines from the Waldner Group ensure perfect results.
Pet owners today place very high demands on pet food manufacturers: not only must the quality, nutritional value and price-performance ratio be right. Pet owners also want to be able to choose from a comprehensive range of different products. After all, the diet for their pets should be varied and offer each four-legged friend an optimal diet tailored to their needs. The pet food industry has responded to these customer requirements and developed and launched an almost unmanageable variety of products on the market: These include various types of dry and wet food based on plants or animals - be it beef, pork, lamb, poultry, rabbit or fish.
Wet food in particular can have a wide range of different consistencies - from soup to pieces of meat in sauce to sliceable pâté. Manufacturers are faced with the challenge of filling all types of products at high speed, efficiently, safely and hygienically. Various containers are used for this purpose, such as tin cans, aluminum trays or stand-up pouches made of plastic (pouch bags). All these types of packaging place special demands on the filling and sealing processes.
Automated and industrial filling of animal feed
To ensure fast, repeatable and industry-compatible workflows, animal feed manufacturers cannot avoid consistent and integrated automation. Waldner offers a practical solution for wet feed in particular with its Dosomat filling, sealing and packaging machines. For more than 50 years, the renowned family business from Wangen in the Allgäu region has been regarded as a competent specialist and one of the market leaders for the automated packaging of a wide range of products. Accordingly, Dosomat systems also enjoy an excellent reputation worldwide when it comes to the efficient filling of products with all conceivable consistencies - be it liquids, pastes or chunky substances.
A particular advantage is that the machines can be flexibly adapted to individual customer requirements and can be used not only in the pet food industry, but also in many other segments such as the dairy industry, meat processing, the beverage and delicatessen sector, as well as in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Sophisticated dosing technology ensures that the products can be filled safely and precisely into a wide variety of prefabricated containers. "The heart of our filling machines is the dosing system. We are able to integrate a suitable dosing unit into the Dosomat for every customer-specific requirement. For example, animal feed manufacturers can fill pieces of meat with sauce precisely into pouch bags or also dose sliceable pâtés into aluminum trays of varying sizes to the exact gram," explains Muhammer Kör, Business Unit Manager Filling, Sealing and Packaging Machines at Waldner.
500 pouch bags per minute
The Dosomat systems are virtually predestined for industrial mass production in the animal feed industry and can automatically fill up to 500 pouch bags per minute. Another advantage: Waldner's machines cover the entire process chain. This means that the containers can not only be filled to the exact gram, but also absolutely tightly and placed on pallets. In this way, the products are ready for further process steps such as subsequent heating for preservation and packaging in shipping cartons.
B4Pets GmbH, based in Waakirchen in Upper Bavaria, also benefits from the many advantages of the Dosomat: The company works with a pet food manufacturer that produces high-quality wet and dry food and fills it into pouch bags using Dosomat systems. "We rely on efficient filling processes to meet the high demands of our customers. The machines from Waldner impress here with a high degree of effectiveness, speed and flexibility. This enables us to run several different animal feed formats and packaging sizes on one and the same machine without any significant set-up times," says Sebastian Hetmann, owner and Managing Director of B4Pets GmbH.
Flexibly cover a wide range of filling quantities
The Dosomat offers sufficient flexibility to easily process filling quantities from 40 to 500 grams and thus cover a wide range of customer requirements. Thanks to the Waldner machines, B4Pets GmbH also benefits from a low return rate: "As the systems guarantee consistently high quality when it comes to filling feed and closing pouch bags, we can keep our customers' satisfaction at a consistently high level," confirms Sebastian Hetmann.
In addition to the high flexibility, speed and reliability of the Waldner filling system the decisive factor for the entrepreneur was the competent service provided by the Wangen-based manufacturer: "The Waldner team responds to support requests in the shortest possible time and always delivers a satisfactory solution. The technicians can also access the systems online, so that the systems are quickly ready for use again in the event of a fault. Due to our high level of satisfaction with , we have ordered a third Dosomat, which will be delivered in February next year," concludes Sebastian Hetmann.
