Alright everyone, after 10 years of dreaming, planning and saving, we got our first rollstock packaging machine: the Bulldog from Ultrasource.
What does this mean for you, the customer? Change. Sorry! I know it’s rough whenever we go and change the way we do something, but let me tell you why, and the benefits, to help soften the blow .
The first benefit for you: a better, stronger package to keep your food fresher. It’s also easier to open – you can tear from the side instead of having to cut it open. Awesome!
The second benefit: a cheaper package which will keep our costs down, helping to keep the prices for you down.
The first place you’ll notice the difference is the bacon case. We ran bacon through the other day and while it went so much faster and has such a better seal and stronger package than the previous way, it does look different. As of right now, the bacon will be more compact, not laid out and “shingled” as before. That may change as we play around with the possibilities more. We also ran burger patties through as well as some steaks, roasts and brats.
As you look through our cases, you’ll see a different looking package every now and then with edges that look like they were cut with pinking shears – that’s the package from the rollstock. You can feel how it’s thicker and stronger than the vacuum bags we used previously.
We are learning and experimenting – deciding which items to run through and which we should do the old way. The old way consisted of putting the meat cut in a bag, putting it in a vacuum packager, waiting for the air to be removed, and the bag to be sealed, open, take the packs out, and label it. You could only do 4-8 items at a time on each side/cycle of the packager.
With the rollstock, we bring the meat cut right to the machine, start it running and just enter product while it goes. It comes out the other side all sealed and packaged and ready for the label.
Like I mentioned before, we are still working out the kinks in changing around our processes. In the future we may order different parts enabling us to do different sizes of products in the macine than the sizes we already have.
This has been super exciting for us. There are so many possibilities! We know it may be a change for you, but we hope it’s one you’ll embrace.
As always, thank you to our customers who continue to choose local and have made this move forward possible.
I have uploaded some pictures of the machine and some bacon that ran through it. I’ll upload some more pics to facebook – check it out!