K-Cups are a life saver in many respects: quick, easily made coffee and with no mess. Just get up, pop the container in a Keurig™, and in moments you have a fresh cup of coffee. No need to wake up early, grind any beans, and throw it into a coffee pot. Who has time for that when you need to get dressed and eat breakfast before your morning commute?

According to an article by Packaging World, Keurig™ held the patent for the K-Cup design for years. In 2012, that patent expired allowing other coffee companies to design cups compatible with their coffee makers, as well as other machines. One of the criticisms of these designs is how the K-Cups can not be recycled. So, we have this convenient container for making coffee, but it is potentially harmful to the planet because it cannot be recycled.

In 2008, Barrie House Coffee & Tea was aware of this issue and designed a sustainable container that was recyclable. Barrie House’s new container design appeared on the market in 2010, but did not infringe on the existing patent. Barrie House is now producing these containers in mass quantities with help from All-Fill products.

The design Barrie House created is very difficult to manufacture for mass production. In 2013, they decided that they needed a better way to produce their product quicker and more efficiently. This is where Pack Line LTD. came in, who All-Fill provided an auger filling system that Pack Line integrated into their machine. In about five months the line was completed and running, which, according to Director of Sales & Marketing, Shay Zohar, is “…unheard of when you’re talking about a complete production line”. In July of the following year, another line was built by Pack Line for Barrie House that improved production by running 300 containers per minute rather than 240.

All-Fill’s multiple auger filling system is servo-driven to control how the product is fed to the center of the hopper. This is a system worked well, but after consideration, Zohar and All-Fill agreed improvements could be made to fully optimize the line. So All-Fill built a new custom system from scratch that Zohar found, “phenomenal,” where the agitation blade was replaced by a vibratory pan, eliminating the need for agitation and making the process more accurate.

The auger filling system was not the only product All-Fill provided. All-Fill also provided three Alpha Checkweighers to properly determine correct carton weights in three different locations throughout the line. One production line utilizes a checkweigher that weighs the containers before they are placed directly into the cases. On a separate line, another checkweigher is placed after the containers are sealed into cartons, where the cartons pass through the check weigher before being placed in larger cases. If the boxes do not meet the proper weight, they are rejected and pushed into a rejection area to be addressed later. The larger cases are then weighed a final time before they are stacked to be crated and shipped.

All-Fill provides a variety of machinery that can package a myriad of products. From four different kinds of fillers to fill virtually any application to vertical form, fill, seal machines & more, All-Fill has a solution for you. All-Fill can easily integrate with each other and OEM equipment such as HFFS, metal detectors, printers and more. All-Fill is your one stop shop for all of your needs!

For more information, feel free to contact us at info@all-fill.com, send us a live chat, or call us at (610) 524-7350.