From Kibble to Custom: Automated Solutions that Keep Up with Pet Food Production Demands

Pet ownership has been significantly on the rise over the last three decades, and according to Forbes, more than 66% of U.S. households own a pet as of 2023. With that, the growing demand from Pet Owners to have variety on the store shelves as rises, making the Pet Food industry near $90 billion in revenue!

To keep up with demand by consumers, automation has to take place in the plant. That’s why Morrison has been creating specific solutions for the industry that deal with increasing throughput in areas of low capacity or high labor.

With containers as unique as the pet owners who buy them, there’s a high level of expertise needed in container handling when it comes to automating these production lines.

A few examples of machinery we’ve designed and commissioned in the last year specifically for the growing Pet Food industry include:

Stacking for sleeving
Precise orienting for labeling
Creating multipacks and variety packs
High speed combining and dividing

Explore some of these solutions in depth below.

Cat Food – Orienting for Labeling

This rotary system is designed to accept a single lane of split cup round containers from a backlog at a rate of 350 containers per minute and will orient them so the split/tabs are leading. While in the screw, the containers will be pre oriented based on physical geometry and inspected for current orientation. When in the turret area, the containers will either be rotated 180 degrees or pass through based on initial inspection in timing screw area. Containers that require orientation will be oriented via mechanical/electrical process. Each station of the turret will use a clutch that will engage/disengage as required base on orientation requirements. Containers that enter our system with the correct orientation will transfer through the orientor but will not require orienting.

This rotary system was designed to accept a single lane of split cup round containers from a backlog at a rate of 350 containers per minute and orient them so that the split/tabs are leading. While in the screw, the containers were pre-oriented based on physical geometry and inspected for orientation.

When in the turret area, the containers are rotated 180 degrees or passed through based on the initial inspection in the timing screw area. Containers that required orientation were oriented via a mechanical/electrical process. Each station of the turret used a clutch that would engage/disengage as required based on orientation requirements. Containers that entered our system with the correct orientation transferred through the orientor without requiring orientation. Learn more about this project here.

Dog Food – Rotary Stacking Solutions

This rotary machine is designed to accept two lanes of product from a backlog, stack them two high (one over one) and discharge them into one lane. One lane of product will be accepted by timing screws at a lower elevation, and one lane of product will be accepted by timing screws at a slightly higher elevation. While transferring through the turret star, the top level can will be placed on the base level can at the tangent point between second lane star and turret star. After being stacked, product will exit from the discharge star.

Morrison worked with a pet food manufacturing company to fully integrate this solution into their line. 

This rotary machine was designed to accept two lanes of product from a backlog, stack them two high (one over one) and discharge them into one lane.

One lane of product was accepted by timing screws at a lower elevation, and one lane accepted by timing screws at a slightly higher elevation. While transferring through the turret star, the top-level can was placed on the base level can at the tangent point between second lane star and turret star. After being stacked, product exited from the discharge star and entered the downstream application. Learn more about this project here.

Pet Food – Indexing Solutions

This highly efficient system is meticulously engineered to seamlessly accommodate both split and round cups Fed from a backlog, this system accepted split and round cups from a backlog, indexed them, and transferred them onto a hydro infeed conveyor. 

 Delve deeper into our tailored solutions by exploring more information here.