Bags Shipped Trouble-Free without Stretch Wrap

Headquartered in Mankato, MN and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Ridley Inc. manufactures and markets a full range of animal nutrition products, including formulated complete feeds, premixes, feed supplements, block supplements, animal health products, and feed ingredients. Ridley’s customers include livestock and poultry breeders and growers who produce meat, dairy, and poultry products that are processed into consumer food products.

“Being passionate about our customers” is the motto that makes Ridley stand out in an industry dominated by some very large players. With 29 plants in the U.S. and eight in Canada, Ridley ranks amongst the largest firms in a $35 billion commercial feed industry. Ridley creates value for its customers by helping them to be more profitable in their own businesses through applied animal science and production technology.

So as Ridley continuously improves its production operations, it did so with the objectives of not only improving efficiency and reducing materials and maintenance costs, but also to reduce carbon footprint while providing tangible benefits to its customers.

A good example is the capital project at the Beloit, KS plant where Ridley produces a wide variety of animal nutrition products. Most of the products are packaged in 50-lb biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) and multi-wall Kraft bags. Prior to the redesign, bags from the packaging lines were hand stacked, five bags per layer and eight layers high. Full pallet loads were then moved with forklifts to the shrink wrapper.

Unfortunately, the design of the bags acted as a lubricant, and BOPP bags had a tendency to fall from pallets in transit to the stretch wrapper or within the stretch wrapper itself. Restacking was an irritation that added cost. From a customer standpoint, loads shifting in transit caused even greater irritation. According to Dustin Varvil, Ridley’s director of manufacturing, nearly half of all shipments of BOPP bags would shift, even with three full top to bottom wraps of stretch, causing great difficulty for Ridley’s customers when unloading product. Customers also found it difficult to move partial pallets, those where stretch wrap had been removed, without incurring spillage.

Varvil had specific objectives in mind for the packaging system upgrades. If he could eliminate stretch wrap, he would avoid the costs of a number of stretch wrappers along with their associated upkeep. In addition, since stretch wrap traps moisture, which is detrimental to product quality and shelf life, product value would also be enhanced. By replacing stretch with a sustainable product, Varvil would also be meeting a corporate core objective of “Being kind to the environment”.

Varvil was aware of a product called Lock n’Pop, a food grade water-based palletizing adhesive for paper bags and cartons. It acts like the glue on sticky notes, with high shear so it will not slide and low tack, hence it separates easily and doesn’t re-stick. Responding to the opportunity provided by a shift to BOPP bags over the past few years, Lock n’ Pop’s chemists developed a water-based adhesive for plastic bags or shrink-wrapped tray packs. Their X3228 product is formulated to reduce shifting, facilitate stacking, improve internal handling, and assist in maintaining load stability on non-porous substrates. Since it dries quickly to a tack-free finish, it is suitable for dusty environments such as flour, cement, and feed processing facilities.

With the new palletizing line at the Beloit plant, capable of handling up to 24 bags/min, air-operated nozzles spray about ¼ g of Lock n’Pop onto each bag just before they enter a Columbia Okura Model A1600 robotic palletizer. The application system is programmed with the palletizer bag counter and does not spray bags destined for the top layer. Since the facility produces both BOPP and paper bags, two types of adhesive are fed to the application manifold and changeovers are easily accomplished with a manual switch. Adhesive is fed from 55-gal drums that are replenished every three or four months, replacing nearly 100 rolls of stretch product that would have been required for this period of time.

“The project payback was substantial in Beloit,” said Varvil. “We replaced 55 cents per pallet of stretch wrap with 5 cents of Lock n’Pop while eliminating a sizeable investment in new stretch equipment. The indirect costs associated with cleaning up frequent spills, the labor savings of handling rolls of stretch wrap, and stretch equipment maintenance costs added additional savings to the conversions.”

Customers appreciate Ridley’s stated commitment to the environment and the elimination of stretch wrap. They are extremely happy with perfect stacks of easy to unload merchandise and the elimination of the labor associated with collecting and disposing of stretch wrap: “win-win” for all parties.

Lock n’Pop is recognized for its ecological advantages and has been featured in three Walmart Sustainable Packaging Expos. An independent firm, Industrial Ecology Consultants of Newton, MA, conducted a detailed environmental performance assessment of the full life cycle of formula X3228 adhesive from cradle-to-grave. They found that in replacing stretch wrap used in a truckload of 22 pallets, Lock n’Pop reduces cumulative energy demands from 703 MJ equivalents to 6.9 equivalents, a 98% reduction. If a single layer of stretch is required as a dust cover, the resulting cumulative demand would be 163 MJ equivalents, a reduction of 77%. From a solid waste standpoint, a full truckload uses about ½ lb of Lock n’Pop compared to several pounds of stretch. Ridley is definitely kind to the environment as all formulas of Lock n’Pop are completely biodegradable.

 For more information, call 800-225-5539 or visit www.locknpop.com.