SOMIC’s growth spurt driven by customer-focused packaging solutions
Ten years into SOMIC Packaging’s foray into North America, the company faces an enviable conundrum: how to manage its gangbusters growth while maintaining the customer-specific solutions driving it.
The German-based company, with its North American subsidiary headquartered in Minnesota, is relocating to a larger facility and ramping up production on the heels of the launch of its next-generation 434 W-3 case packaging machine.
“We’ve built a facility that’s five times larger than what we’re currently in. We’ll be able to triple our output in terms of overall machine sales in the United States,” Peter Fox, CEO at SOMIC Packaging Inc., told Produce Processing. “That’s a really big deal for us. We’re on a pretty steep growth trajectory, and it’s fun to watch the company grow.”
SOMIC’s solutions for single- and multi-component end-of-line packaging come equipped with customized tools tailored to customers, from open trays or wraparound cases to multi-component carton or corrugated packs.
The 434, which debuted at Interpack 2023 last May, builds on the company’s heritage 424 machine series and is the latest example of the flexibility and efficiency SOMIC strives to provide.
“It’s conceptually and functionally the same machine,” Fox said. “It’s just been updated and upgraded, with things that our customers wanted to see, such fewer barriers to getting in and out of the machine, whether it be a maintenance or a changeover situation.”
FOCUS ON FUNCTIONALITY
American Pasteurization Co., the Milwaukee-based co-packer for organic snack company Once Upon A Farm, turned to SOMIC to help keep up with booming business.
Once Upon A Farm, founded in 2015 by a group of entrepreneurs including actress Jennifer Garner to provide nutritious baby food and snacks for children, needed to meet growing production needs faster using less labor. Packing with SOMIC’s 424 W-3 case packer began in Milwaukee in mid-February.
“This machine replaced quite a few extra sets of hands we needed to have on the line,” Greg Zaja, vice president of business development for American Pasteurization Co., said. “We also had an older piece of equipment that we were getting by with but it wasn’t intended to handle the volume we now do. The SOMIC machine allows for greater hourly throughput with a far-reduced risk of human error.”
Less error means less downtime, which increases efficiency and profitability.
“Keeping costs in check helps us offer our customers the most competitive pricing in the industry,” Zaja said. “Reducing the risk of delays or cost overruns helps our customers meet all their objectives, which is our No. 1 priority.
“The functionality of the machine itself was key.”
All the updates found in the 434 — including automatic changeover adjustments to components including the glue nozzle and magazine — are designed to increase that basic goal, Fox said.
“It (the 434) incorporates what I believe to be the biggest strength of the SOMIC case packer, and that is the ultimate simplicity in the functionality of the machine,” Fox said. “Whether it be a flexible film product or a bottle or virtually any type of package, our ability to organize, collect and then manipulate the product is pretty significant. That makes so many of our packages perfect for the world of retail-ready, because we can present that product exactly how the customer wants it to appear when that case is opened.”
SOMIC’s flexibility and functionality also helped a cheese packaging company overcome a challenge, Fox said. The company was struggling to meet club store packaging requirements for stacking strength and shelf positioning, running a separate product line with complicated, hand- formed casing that ate into profitability.
Different functional groups allowed SOMIC machines to run a standard wraparound case, then switch to a run with specific requirements, Fox said. The company developed a tray concept with flaps folded into a corner post.
“We form these corner posts on the tray and then we erect the trays around the product inside of a forming mandrel,” Fox said. “It creates a tremendously strong box that, if you compare it to what they were doing before with their hand erecting, uses about 45% less material. Not only are you getting a stronger box, you’re automating the entire process and eliminating 40% of the material.
“It gave the plant much more operational flexibility, (and) it’s a pretty common story that we have with a lot of the projects that we do.”
SUCCESS IN ALL SIZES
Another appeal of SOMIC’s equipment is its small footprint, Fox said.
“We use the minimum amount of space necessary to complete a lot of different functions in that very small space,” he said.
That proved the deciding factor for a small, family-owned sausage company in Kentucky which chose SOMIC for its first automated case packer.
“The primary driver was they had so little space available for a traditional case packer, where you have case forming, case loading and case closing,” Fox said. “We do that all in one very small frame.”
That compactness helps SOMIC address another core company focus: sustainability. Its wraparound cases, formed around the product, use less material, while SOMIC reduces energy consumption at its plants by using vacuum material handling systems instead of energy-inefficient compressed air, Fox said.
“Everything that we do is really based on efficiency,” he said. “There’s a lot of restrictions and regulations in Europe when it comes to energy consumption and packaged material usage. Because of our European heritage, we tend to minimize, minimize, minimize.”
When he spearheaded SOMIC’s launch in North America a decade ago, Fox expected larger consumer packaged goods operations would make up the bulk of the company’s customer base, but he has found that businesses of all sizes have benefited.
“We’re not the most inexpensive machine out there, so I thought we’re going to be hard-pressed to justify this to smaller companies,” he said. “Actually, we’ve really kind of found a sweet spot mostly in the mid-sized companies, for companies that are producing a large number of formats.
“They have really been a huge part of our success, and some very small companies.”
That across-the-board success will soon see SOMIC relocate from its Eagan, Minnesota, facility to its larger plant in Grove Heights, where the company will make all machines for the North American market, in October. Fox also expects the North American arm of the company to add around 20 employees by 2025.
“We’re growing fast,” he said. “The biggest challenge that we have right now is managing our growth and just making sure we’re not allowing this growth to keep us from continuing to produce the quality product that we do and satisfy as many customers as possible.”