As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing a strong emergence of food safety and hygiene concerns, which are making it imperative for manufacturers to create better flexible packaging materials for the food and beverage industry. In this background, smart packaging has emerged as their saving grace bringing a diverse range of technologically advanced packaging approaches and offering valuable benefits of security, connectivity, and authentication. However, to offer such flexible packaging, companies have to address challenges such as rising commodity prices and sustainability challenges in developing new products. This is where an Australian-based manufacturing company Foodmach comes in.

As a leader in packaging handling solutions, Foodmach designs, manufactures, and integrates equipment, providing a complete set of solutions for the food and beverage industry. With over 30 years of experience and having its own electrical and software division, Foodmach is specialized in Industry 4.0 and provides a comprehensive range of flexible automation that will accommodate every packaging need, form filling, labeling, and inspecting, along with conveying, case packaging, palletizing, and pallet wrapping.

Notably, Foodmach designs and manufactures leading-edge palletizers and depalletizers for food, beverage, and industrial manufacturers, while helping them fully integrate the new equipment with the company’s existing machinery. At the same time, Foodmach also delivers very efficient line management control systems for the companies.

Working closely with some of the world’s leading food and beverage companies, today, Foodmach has developed an award-winning and flexible palletizing solution, Robomatrix®. The solution can gently handle packs above ten layers per minute with absolute precision and reliability. This eliminates unwanted pack turning or layer pattern problems common with conventional palletizing systems.

Together with that, Foodmach’s proprietary robotic pattern forming software, Robowizard®, provides a drag and drop interface that enables size changeovers in minutes, not days – with no technician required. As simple as it sounds!

Working closely with some of the world’s leading food and beverage companies, today, Foodmach has developed an award-winning and flexible palletizing solution, Robomatrix®

What’s more? Foodmach is widely recognized as an industry leader in supplying the food and beverage sector with turnkey conveyor solutions. They offer the latest in conveyor technologies and manufacture custom-built conveyor solutions to handle primary containers (plastic, glass bottles, and metal cans), secondary cases (cartons, multi-packs, shrink-packs, open trays), and palletized products. Foodmach can modify or splice their conveyors into other or existing conveyor lines, as well as supply a fully integrated line with complete line control that puts their clients in the driver’s seat.

Equally impressive is Foodmach’s proprietary line manufacturing execution system (LMES), with a user-focused interface that uses high-level control architecture design and packaging machinery language (PackML) to get all the machines on a packaging line talking to each other. It enables operators to obtain consistent data from different machine brands with different control systems, maximize performance, isolate issues, and make changes without needing to call a software engineer. “We are equally focused on our team members’ job satisfaction and skill development as we are on the development of smart factories and increased profitability for customers,” highlights Earle Roberts, CEO of Foodmach.

Moving forward, Foodmach is now looking at an ambitious future. The company is aiming for the new generation of collaborative robots, which are easy to install and operate, and thus paving the way for enhanced transparency and productivity. “Foodmach technicians will commission new packaging lines by remote and take over the on-site work usually done by European technology providers,” concludes Roberts.