Delkor leads cheese packaging with unmatched, versatile solutions

As a leader in advanced robotic packaging systems, Delkor has a nationwide reputation for offering innovative and versatile solutions from individual packaging machines to complete line integration. The company has seen significant growth over the past several years as demand has increased for its product offerings, which are backed by experts who specialize in the forming, loading and closing of secondary packages.

Delkor harnesses the latest technological advancements among servo drives, robotics and vision systems to create elegant solutions to solve the dairy industry’s packaging challenges. Today the company has more than 350 employees working from its 300,000-square-foot plant in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is the largest U.S. manufacturer of vision-based robotic case packers.

Innovative offerings

Delkor showcased some of its latest innovations at 2023's Pack Expo in Las Vegas and Process Expo in Chicago. One of its newer offerings is the Trayfecta X Series® Case and Tray Former, the company’s most versatile former. With a multi-axis servo control, it is capable of producing retail-ready packages, stackable club trays and standard shipping cases with just a simple changeover.

Dan Altman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Delkor, says customers had noted a lack of magazine space on some earlier models, and the new Trayfecta X Series Former doubles the capacity. The machine’s 500-blank capacity and secondary magazine enable pre-loading of the next case for immediate startup. It also features layout flexibility, a compact footprint and adjustable tooling. Customers can save up to 40% by forming cases from a flat bank instead of pre-glued or hand-setup designs.

Customers can save up to 40% by forming cases from a flat bank instead of pre-glued or hand-setup designs.

Altman notes the machine is compatible with Delkor’s popular patented Cabrio Case® as well.

“The Cabrio Case really put us on the map,” he says, noting the company now offers it to customers free of charge with the purchase of a Delkor former or case packer.

Only five years since it hit the shelves of mass merchandisers like Walmart, Delkor will ship more than 1 billion Cabrio Cases to U.S. mass merchandisers this year for retail-ready displays across several product categories including cheese.

“The cheese industry is where we started, but demand for our machines is growing in other sectors like protein, candy, nuts, snacks and frozen foods,” Altman adds.

Another featured product from Delkor is its LSP Series Case Packer, a single top-load case packer that packs products horizontally or vertically into standard shippers, club store trays and retail-ready formats including the Cabrio Case.

The LSP Series Case Packer can pack pouches and large bags into deep cases at speeds up to 180 products per minute. The loader also can place a variety of pouches into multiple types of cases seamlessly. Its modular design is available in 1-,2-,3-,4- or 5-robot options to meet any speed requirement and performs a full line changeover in eight minutes or less.

Altman notes it also can be used for packaging chunk cheese, slice, stick or shred, making it applicable to any case display.

Meanwhile, Delkor’s Performance Series Case Packer is a case and tray packer designed and engineered with key performance features in mind including a pick-and-place gantry and an innovative in-feed system to reach loading speeds up to 250 containers per minute. It is optimized for packing tapered cups, bottles and a range of other container shapes and styles into a variety of retail-ready packages, cases, trays and other secondary packaging styles.

The Performance Series Case Packer’s compact design fits into nearly all floor plans. It accepts a wide variety of standard and unstable primary containers and features Delkor’s patented Intelligent Synchronization, which eliminates high-maintenance collation chains and lengthy infeeds, while electronically controlling the flow of product for a perfect pattern every time, Altman says.

The product’s sanitary open channel frame also enables installation into the most demanding environments, making it ideal for meeting stringent dairy industry sanitation criteria, he adds.

“If you’re going to play in certain industries — especially cheese and protein — you have to provide offerings that meet a certain level of sanitary standards, and our machines do that,” he says.

Leaders in cheese

Altman adds that working in industries like cheese requires a great deal of flexibility.

“Retailers are ever changing, and our lines have the flexibility to be able to adapt to those changes and offer a quick changeover,” he says.

Delkor also offers an in-house packaging lab in its St. Paul operation to design packages, print artwork and compression test products before they hit the market. This lab is a value add and ensures that Delkor customers fully understand the packages they are getting and that they can actually be formed on the machines they are providing.

“We’ll work with your team every step of the way to provide reliable solutions for the entire line,” Altman says. Delkor has proven to be one of the most creative companies in the cheese industry, Altman adds.

Delkor has proven to be one of the most creative companies in the cheese industry

“Not only have we developed a new generation of cutting-edge machinery, but our team has invented fresh package concepts that deliver savings, use less material and improve our customers’ on-shelf brand appearance,” he says.

Delkor also offers well-trained technicians.

“We invest heavily in our service crew, making sure they’re set with all of the skills they could need to work on our customers’ equipment,” Altman says.

The company offers a 24-hour hotline for maintenance issues and can send a technician to a facility in less than 24 hours if needed. Delkor also offers training programs to expand customers’ skills and expertise in maintaining and operating its equipment lines.

Sustainability also plays a key role in Delkor’s approach to packaging innovation, Altman notes.

“We are hugely involved in the design of packaging with our customers and are always pushing to save on materials,” he says.

With 20+ years at the company under his belt, Altman says the culture at Delkor is one of pride in supplying premiere machinery for packaging and backing it up with a reputation for quality and expertise.

The company considers itself more than a manufacturer, but also a partner as it works with customers to find a solution that matches their specific needs. Whether rolling out a new facility or upgrading an existing one, selecting the best case packing machines is of paramount importance, Altman notes.

“As one of the largest robotic case packing and cartoning companies in North America, we’ve played in a number of sectors over the years,” he says. “We continue to optimize our designs with each new product shape and company we create equipment for.”

This article was originally published in Cheese Market News.