Last week, when I went to Shandong customers to debug the equipment, the workshop director Lao Li pointed to the freeze-dried quail jumping on the assembly line and shook his head: "This thing is harder to serve than my baby! The previous machine had to clean the debris once it packed ten bags, but your pet food packaging machine didn't even get the fluff on the quail's legs stuck." This reminds me of three years ago, when our R&D team squatted at the pet trade show, staring at those strange-shaped snack packaging bags in a daze - from triangle bags, self-supporting bags to bone-shaped special-shaped bags, the packaging needs of this industry are even more elusive than cats.
When special-shaped bags meet "iron stomach" feeding
To be honest, the most troublesome thing about pet food packaging is shape adaptation. Last year, our factory received an order from an Australian customer. The kangaroo jerky they wanted to package looked like tree branches, and the grippers of ordinary packaging machines could not hold it firmly. At that time, the workshop was filled with the smell of roasted meat every day. Xiao Wang from the technical team even laughed at himself: "If I try again, I can open a pet snack evaluation account!" Later, we installed a double spiral vibration plate on the pet food packaging machine, with a flexible silicone conveyor belt, so that no matter it is flakes, blocks or irregular particles, it can be steadily fed into the forming machine. Now this system can even handle the 30-centimeter-long dried fish bags exclusive to Maine Coons. Customers jokingly call it "the versatile star in the packaging industry."
Atmosphere preservation is more serious than a cat's nose
Last year on Double Eleven, the chicken breast strips of a popular pet brand were returned due to bag bulging problems. This incident sounded a wake-up call for us. The atmosphere preservation system of traditional packaging machines is OK for human food, but it is easy to "turn over" when it comes to high-protein pet food. Our engineers spent two months in the laboratory and finally figured out the trick: it turns out that the food for furry children has a higher fat content and requires more precise nitrogen-oxygen ratio control. Now our pet food packaging machine is equipped with a dynamic gas analyzer, which can detect while inflating, and can also automatically adjust parameters according to the ambient temperature and humidity. Last month, when installing a machine for a customer in Zhejiang who makes functional pet food, their quality control director brought a detector to the site. As a result, 20 bags were sampled continuously, and the residual oxygen content was all controlled below 0.8% - this data even surprised their testing equipment imported from Germany.
Sealing components are more wear-resistant than dog bones
The sealing strips of pet food packaging machines wear out quickly, which is almost a common problem in the industry. Our factory's technical consultant Lao Zhou has a catchphrase: "Whether the machine is good or not depends on whether it can chew hard bones." He is talking about those pet dry foods that have bone meal and shell powder added. Conventional chrome-plated molds are worn out after three months of use, so we simply moved aviation-grade tungsten carbide materials here. I still remember the first test, the "squeaking" friction sound in the workshop was so annoying, but after running for eight hours, there was no scratch on the surface of the mold. Now this set of sealing components dares to write a warranty period of two years. A customer who makes freeze-dried raw bones and meat sighed after using it for half a year: "The seal of your machine is more durable than my stainless steel dog bowl!"
Smart weighing? Dog bowls are jealous
Recently, the concept of "precision nutrition" has become popular in the pet industry, and 5-gram trace element supplements and 10-gram functional snacks are selling well. This has worried many manufacturers' packaging workshops - the traditional weighing module has a large error, and more powder is spilled during packaging than is put into the bag. We have installed a highly sensitive microgram-level sensor on the pet food packaging machine, and with the self-developed static elimination device, even fish oil powder, a "sticky essence", can be accurately fed. There is a customer in Tianjin who makes health products for elderly dogs. The original manual packaging wasted two or three kilograms of raw materials every day. After replacing it with our equipment, the workshop director made a special calculation: "The money saved by the machine is enough to buy dog food for the dogs of all the employees in the factory for a year!" Now every time I pass by the assembly workshop and see those pet food packaging machines being packaged, I always think of the video sent by the customer: on the assembly line, packaging bags printed with cartoon paw prints popped out one by one, and the golden retriever in the workshop squatted beside and watched intently. This scene made me feel that the technical details we tossed around - whether it is the special-shaped bag packaging technology or the modified atmosphere preservation system - in the end, isn't it just to ensure that each bag of pet food can be safely delivered to the bowl of the furry child? Next time if you pass by our factory, don't forget to go to the finished product display area, where there are tasting packs packaged by our own machines. You can bet that after your cat tastes it, even the most arrogant puppet will turn over at you!
