John B. Sanfilippo & Son (https://jbssinc.com/, JBSS) traces back to 1922, when Gaspare Sanfilippo and his son John founded a pecan shelling company in Chicago. Today, its products are sold nationwide under the company’s brand names: Fisher, Squirrel Brand, Just the Cheese, Southern Style Nuts, and Orchard Valley Harvest, as well as numerous private label brands. Assembly is done across five U.S. facilities, with corporate headquarters located just west of Chicago in Elgin, Ill.
One of the keys to JBSS’ success is creating lasting partnerships with industry OEMs such as Bartelt to provide equipment and expertise for its packaging operations.
JBSS has been operating Bartelt’s horizontal form fill and seal machines at its Elgin facility for the past several years. When the company was looking to increase output on one of its packaging lines, it replaced an older machine with the new K-260, a flexible horizontal form fill and seal roll stock pouching machine from Bartelt that offers fast, intuitive changeovers.
“We changeover all the time, multiple times a day, and we needed to make sure that line can run many different product sizes and bag styles,” said Eric Hermes, Senior Packaging Engineering, JBBS. “We run 1-ounce bags on that line, all the way up to 2-pound bags. The solution needed flexibility to meet our changing product runs.”
The K-260 is a servo driven horizontal form, fill, and seal pouching machine that utilizes roll stock, which is formed into either flat or gusset-style pouches. Pouches are heat sealed using temperature-controlled seal bars then cut and transferred into the dual clamping system and transported to the filling and closing module of the machine. After pouches are filled with a servo-controlled opening and closing system, they are transferred to the top seal area where they are closed, sealed and discharged.
The K-260 can produce several packaging styles, including three- or four-sided seal, gusset bottom, doy stand-up pouch, zipper pouch, and others. In addition to nuts and snacks, the K-260 is ideal for confectionary, fruits and vegetables, household, pet care and other industries.
JBSS operates a total of four horizontal pouch machines from Bartelt, with its newest unit, the K-260, installed in 2023. This machine is proving to be a workhorse for JBSS, as the line runs about 20 hours a day, five days a week.
“If flexibility and being able to control your line are important, then Bartelt is the company to partner with,” Hermes said. “They understand who we are, and we understand who they are. Bartelt is a solid company to work with.”
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Bartelt is a trusted manufacturer of pouching, cartoning, shrink wrapping, over wrapping, and case and tray packing systems, providing dependable and long-lasting solutions to food and non-food industries. Bartelt also operates as a master distributor for FLtècnics’ rollstock pouch machines. As the world’s first developer of intermittent motion horizontal form fill seal pouching machines, Bartelt is a true pioneer in automated packaging.