At the end of last month, the rainy season in Nakhon Sawan Province, Thailand came more urgently than in previous years. Across the video conference screen, we saw Mr. Songchai, an old customer who has cooperated for three years, worrying about the damp and clumping fragrant rice in the warehouse: "Brothers from ply-pack, can you give us a packaging solution that is not afraid of moisture?" These words are like seeds, taking root and sprouting in the R&D workshop of our factory-twenty days later, three automatic weighing and sealing machines with moisture-proof black technology landed steadily on the fragrant rice production line on the banks of the Chao Phraya River.
This matter has to start with the particularity of fragrant rice packaging. Buyers of Thai jasmine rice are most afraid of two things: one is that the air humidity is high during the rainy season, and the sack packaging makes the rice grains turn yellow easily; the other is that the heat sealing temperature of the traditional sealing machine always "burns" the rice fragrance. The automatic weighing and sealing machine we designed for Songchai added a "breathing membrane" at the discharge port - it sounds mysterious, but it actually uses the principle of air pressure difference. When the fragrant rice is weighed and falls into the packaging bag, the equipment will instantly remove the entrained humid air and inject nitrogen to keep it fresh. The latest feedback received last week was that the fragrant rice they packaged with this equipment was shipped to Shanghai Port by sea. When unpacking, the jasmine fragrance was as strong as when it was packed in the rice mill.
Weighing accuracy has hit the pain point of Southeast Asian rice merchants. You may not know that Thai fragrant rice exports are priced by gram weight. If the 500-gram package is 3 grams less, it will drop a grade. The automatic weighing and sealing machine in our factory is equipped with "double insurance": first, a high-speed camera identifies the density of rice flow and adjusts the feeding speed in real time; and there is a dynamic calibration system when it falls on the scale, which controls the error of each bag within 5 grains of rice like an old accountant pulling an abacus. The customer who specializes in high-end gift rice in Bangkok said it honestly: "Ten workers used to watch the scale, but now the machine itself is the quality inspector."
What we are most proud of is the "fool-proof operation". Considering that Thai workers are not very good at Chinese and English, engineers equipped the automatic weighing and sealing machine with a three-in-one operation interface in Thai, Burmese and Lao. When debugging the equipment last month, local worker Anucha gestured with the mobile phone translation software for a long time, and found that the elephant icon on the touch screen would guide the operation steps - tapping the nose is parameter setting, and tapping the ears is to switch packaging specifications. Now their production line leader proudly says: "The new girl can start work after half an hour of training!"
However, when it comes to technical breakthroughs, we have to beware of the secondary upgrade of moisture packaging. It turns out that one of Songchai''s clients is a Japanese restaurant chain, which requires the rice packaging bag to be able to block moisture and be heated directly in a microwave oven. Our factory''s laboratory soaked a whole cabinet of jasmine rice for testing, and finally developed a composite material with air holes. These micropores that are invisible to the naked eye are usually closed, and they will automatically open and release moisture when encountering microwave radiation. Now this "breathing" packaging bag has become a selling point. I heard that even Singapore Airlines'' in-flight meals are using it.
Standing by the grain drying field of Songchai''s house, watching the golden fragrant rice pour into the automatic weighing and sealing machine like a waterfall, the moment the sealing line passes through the bag mouth, the familiar popcorn fragrance explodes in the air. This smell reminds us of the two weeks when we debugged the equipment in Guangdong, and the days of eating boxed lunches with customers in a high temperature of 40 degrees. If you are also worried about the moisture in the packaging of agricultural products and inaccurate weighing, you might as well come to our workshop to have a look - try the rice cooked with fragrant rice packaged with our own equipment, and the feeling of the rice grains bouncing in your mouth is the best technical manual.
