Best Ingredient handling to packaging companies

#1 ABM Equipment

If you’re looking to scale your food manufacturing system and only have a recipe, we can take care of the rest with very few exceptions. ABM Equipment’s unique offering is our handling of complete systems; we find the equipment, modify it, design the system, build the frames and transitions, integrate it, maintain it, and provide the software to tie it all together. Just as uniquely, we don’t try to force our equipment into your system. We start with the system and pick the optimal solutions from the marketplace. We’re large enough that we can manage your product and other contractors, and small enough that we’re flexible and don’t need to feed the corporate machine.
Note: Cablevey, Kason, Marion, Spiroflow, Engsko, Meridian, Mettler Toledo, and Spantech are ABM partners and are included in this ranking.

#2 Shambaugh

Shambaugh is a great design/build/integrator in several industries that has a good hold of this one. They’re great at dairy, have their own controls, and do their own engineering, fab, and project management. At all of our meetings they’ve been notably competent and prepared. Another upside is they do liquids, and the only downside to Shambaugh in our opinion is that they don’t do everything in our category, namely inspection.

#3 Azo

Azo is a high-end manufacturing house centered around pneumatics that has developed automated systems that work for batch or continuous processes. They’ve both developed and copied equipment from around the industry, incorporating it all into systems that can automate bulk product as well as the “minors”, which can be great if your project fits their line. Similar to Buhler, they have great products and are known in the high-end flour blending world, but they are very expensive, and service can be very difficult to access as they are from Germany.

#4 Bratney

Bratney is a premier “feed and seed” rep. company (from the agricultural world) that is trying to break into the processing side, and that’s where we compete with them. Though they are not very experienced in this sector yet, they rep. what we consider the best grain cleaning and sorting equipment for the agricultural world from New Zealand and we expect good things from them. Bratney’s only crux is inherent in their size, in that they like to stick to conventional ways of doing things—they won’t be great for custom lines or the little things that are often needed to make a line work. Our Co-Founder actually started his career in sales there.
Note: They aren't given a mark for integration above because they don't build mezzanines and connections, but they will install equipment.

#5 Buhler

Buhler is a large Swiss company that does a lot of different things in a lot of different industries. In ours, they stand out in agriculture, bulk solids transfers, conveying, and high-end manufacturing integration. Buhler is very expensive with lead times often over 6 months, but they are pleasant, competent people to work with and make top-notch equipment if cost isn’t a concern.

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Companies after this point won’t be able to give you a full system, but they will be helpful for similar needs such as components, building and architecture, warehousing, or liquids. No company is good at every category, but by using the chart and descriptions, you can find the top companies for anything you need. Electrical is excluded because pretty much anyone with an X under engineering or integration will know (or know how to find) a good one in your area. They are arranged by how likely they are to be what you're looking for if you found this article.

Apollo

Mechanical contracting + liquids

Starting out as a mechanical contractor in the potato industry’s wet side, Apollo has also become an engineering house working its way into other solutions, including bulk dry goods. Apollo is a good company—particularly for the wet side—but they have overestimated their ability in the dry side and complicated some of our jobs in the past. But otherwise they have great engineers and a mechanical fleet with the bandwidth to send 30 guys to smash out a job in a pinch. They get a full mark on integration because they do build mezzanines and support structures like ABM.

Magnum

Tough product conveying

Originally entering the market as a company that would do the applications others didn’t want, Magnum has become a great all-around company and is the first choice for “dirty” (not food grade) applications. They’re priced very well considering their size, extremely competent, and their equipment always works. They can do custom components but won’t do R&D/custom designs and don’t have a lot a frills on their equipment. They do food-grade applications, but we only recommend them for this when you simply need to check that box. They don’t love doing controls, but will provide functional descriptions which we consider a big plus because we like to handle controls—and the service fees won’t eat you alive down the road.

NBE (National Bulk Equipment)

Premier components

NBE makes beautiful, overbuilt (that’s a good thing) bulk handling equipment with lots of functions and features beyond what other people are willing to do. They are one of our favorite companies that always delivers, never delivers a disappointing product, and is willing to customize equipment to an uncommon degree for companies their size. They are a leading provider of system components (not systems) but are expensive and have unusually long lead times—probably due in part to the demand. Their standout equipment that leads their line is their bulk bag and tote-filling and loading equipment.

Accurate

Mid-range feeders

“Accurate” is a feeder company excelling at low-rate applications from food to nutraceuticals. Their feeders are too expensive for low-precision applications like gypsum, a little bit overkill for pre-process food, perfect for food-grade and 3A food, a little under-kill for nutraceuticals, and generally not precise enough for pharmaceuticals. Although they are not as pretty or precise as K-Tron, they are cheaper, the controls are easier to work with, and they make all-around good feeders. Said feeders are known for being able to operate either as gravimetric or volumetric, and that is a big plus. However, they offer very little customization and can only talk systems theoretically.

Annik Engineering

Rep. org with engineering

Annik is a rep organization started by an engineer targeting smaller applications. As a rep org., they focus on selling the manufacturers on their line card, but they do good work and we recommend them for jobs that fit their relationships.

Hapman

Basic Components

Hapman is one of the most prolific sources of equipment/components for simple dry ingredient handling needs. Integrators like ourselves and experienced maintenance and operations staff from manufacturers will go to Hapman when they know exactly what they want and don’t want to wait (they stock inventory). They will customize equipment within their bubble and will provide a little guidance on systems, but they aren’t going to do a whole system because they lack the little pieces and nuanced experience within their sales staff to make it hap’, man. Not everyone can make the best of every kind of equipment, and Hapman is no different, but their flexible conveyors are standouts in the industry. They provide trouble-free quoting and know whether to use a flat or round wire, and we like working with them because we know what we’re doing and don’t like being forced into testing. Their downside is that they’re more expensive than their number one competitor, Flexicon.

Flexicon

Basic Components

You can copy everything we said about Hapman to Flexicon because it basically exists to copy Hapman. The distinction is that Flexicon’s application (experience) bench isn’t quite as deep, they’re a little cheaper, and rather than their flexible conveyors standing out (ironically), their bulk tote filler is their stand-out piece of equipment. It has a good design that allows the operator to disengage the bulk bag without getting onto the powered roller conveyor. Both Hapman and Flexicon are in the same realm as Qlar/Coperion, but they are not in the same league money-wise.

Reyco

Alternative pneumatics

Reyco is a custom-design fabricator specializing in pneumatics. They are a reliable group that is in the sweet spot of being too big to drop the ball and not big enough to lose their creativity, so they can be relied upon to find the most efficient way to do things. Reyco’s weak spots are in sanitary processes.

Schenck

Mid- to high-end pneumatics

Schenck is a large, established pneumatics house that has 3A-qualified systems, is great at sanitary, and does controls in-house like we do. Their size makes them reliable, but you pay a sizable premium for this, and they won’t give you functional descriptions because they want to make money on the controls side. They’re a good option for sanitary projects when you’re willing to pay extra for the security large companies provide.

K-Tron

High-end feeding

K-Tron makes very nice (and aesthetically pleasing), high-end feeders that are so precise that most people just end up leaving them in volumetric mode and not using their precision because opening a door will make the load cells jump. For this reason they’re great for pharmaceuticals, compounding, and plastics, but too expensive to be used for products that don’t need this level of precision.

Blueprint Automation

Packaging + warehousing

Blueprint Automation is a large engineering firm we’ve worked with several times that is particularly good at coordinating and maintaining large customers. Not strictly revisionists, Blueprint has creative engineers that you can rely on to solve problems and make sure product is aligned right, handled right, and transferred right. They were given more than 50% of end-of-line packaging for one of our global customers and have always had their stuff together at meetings. The only thing to look out for with Blueprint is that sometimes their engineers can over-design things, leading to unnecessary costs. But you can argue this is an insurance against unforeseen complications. Overall a solid company.

CPS

Packaging + warehousing

Case Packing Systems can be thought of as an up-and-coming Blueprint Automation, except that they do complete systems within their category and are based in the Netherlands, while Blueprint is in the US. They are great for custom conveyors and equipment with a strength in potatoes, they are very strong in controls, and we have seen them perform surprisingly well on jobs with incomplete information (they can make a packaging idea in your head into reality). They also make very nice packaging equipment in-house, which comes in a modular design which we love because it makes things easier on us when processors change and grow their systems.

Power Engineers

Engineering + liquids, building, & warehousing

As the name suggests, Power Engineers is an engineering house that works in many industries outside food processing (primarily power). For a bulk system, they will call us for a mixer, for example, and then one of our reps will pitch ours against 5 other offerings. They will then repeat this process for the rest of the components in the line and put it all together in a drawing. This is tough on integrators like ourselves but is a smart way to turn out good systems while protecting against in-house knowledge gaps.

Dennis Group

Engineering + liquids, building, & warehousing

Dennis Group focuses on other industries, but they show up enough they deserve a mention. They engineer projects beginning-to-end, and they will fit equipment together, but aren’t going to hear an idea you have in your head and make it happen. They're what this industry calls an “order taker”, which is someone who can deliver a solution if you know exactly what it is and how to communicate it to an engineer; so if you want a process you’ve seen they'll come copy that line. They will get bids for electrical and construction as well, they just won’t be “on-site”.