Bagging New Business for Soil, Mulch Producers

By P.J. Heller

Soil and mulch producers who may be considering adding a packaging line to their operation face a bagful of issues, from selecting the best equipment to finding and hiring personnel.

“When you’re selecting a bagging system, the things to consider are the volume you’re going to do, the cost of the equipment, the reliability of the equipment and the labor market,” advises John Spencer, chief executive officer of Mulch Manufacturing in Columbus, Ohio.

Both manual and automatic bagging systems are available from equipment manufacturers.

“If you’re going to do manual bagging, you’re going to require more labor and therefore have to look at the labor market in terms of availability and the cost of that labor,” Spencer says.

Mulch Manufacturing, which has been in business for 26 years, sells bagged mulch to customers throughout the northern and central U.S. It runs mostly automatic bagging equipment, although it still operates some manual machines. It produces 1.5, 2 and 3 cubic foot bags of mulch.

“We specialize in mulches,” Spencer says. “We never ventured into soils. That makes us somewhat unique.”

Mulch Manufacturing sells only a small amount of bulk mulch.

The same is true at SureGreen Mulch (formerly Louisiana Soil Products) in Ruston, La., where about 85 percent to 90 percent of output is mulch in 2 and 3 cubic foot bags and soils in 40-pound bags. The company produces 4 million bags annually on two automated packaging lines.

“Some large contractors say it’s easier for them to handle the product in bags,” notes general manager Jason McIntosh. “There’s less waste. There is also less handling.”

McIntosh says soil and mulch producers interested in a bagging system can start with a limited amount of equipment and add more as demand for their product increases.

“You can start off on a pretty small scale and with a few additions — some hardware and software — you can ramp up a line to get it to where you need to be,” he says. “It’s not like you need to step out there and buy a 30-bag-a-minute machine. You can start off small and as you grow you can definitely add to your line.”

Spencer says volume will largely determine whether to install a manual or automated system.

“If you’re only going to do a few hundred truckloads a year, then you wouldn’t be able to cost-justify an automatic bagging system,” he says. “Once you get beyond 500 or 1,000 truckloads per year, then you could probably justify the automatic system.”

Installing a bagging system, however, is no guarantee that a soil or mulch producer will be successful, Spencer says. What is also required is to have a full array of product offerings, including cedars, cypresses, pines, hardwoods and colored mulches, he says.

Maintaining a bagging system is also essential, according to McIntosh.

“You get out of the bagging lines what you put into them,” he says. “If you service them . . . you maintain them, take care of them, they perform for you just like anything else.”

Both Spencer and McIntosh agree that expanding into the bagged mulch business can be difficult because of fierce competition for fiber by energy and biofuel plants sparked by government initiatives that have pushed up prices.

“Everybody’s gotten into it,” McIntosh says. “It’s a fight to get what was so easy to get before.”

The still slumping U.S. economy also is impacting plans by some soil and mulch producers to install bagging equipment, according to various equipment manufacturers.

“Our sales have slumped as the economy has slumped,” McIntosh notes.

Spencer, however, says despite the economic turndown, people are still purchasing bagged mulch.

“It is true that in a down economy, people do stay home more and do buy more mulch,” he says. “We see that time and time again.”

At the height of the recession in 2009, Spencer says the company “seriously wondered if this would be an exception to the rule. But we did have a good year. It looks as if this season will also be a good season for the mulch industry because it is a commodity that is used even when the economy is bad.

“At the current time, mulch is still moving very well,” he adds.

Manufacturers of bagging equipment offer similar mixed messages about whether soil and mulch producers are looking at adding packaging equipment or whether they are bagging their plans.

“If you look at the trend the last two years, the bagged product market is on a pretty good growth track,” notes Dan Brown, executive vice president at Hamer automated packaging systems in Minnesota. “Part of that is based on the fact that during recessionary times, people are staying home, working on their gardens and improving the value of their property.

“Our customers who work with a lot of the big box stores are seeing a pretty good increase in demand for bagged products,” Brown says.

Brian McHugh, a field sales manager with Premier Tech Systems in Canada, disagrees.

“The industry has been hurt by the recession,” he says. “Customers seem to be buying less soil and mulch bags than they were. Basically it’s because the housing market went south. So I don’t see a lot of people getting in [offering bagged products] right now.”

Tiny Andrews, industrial sales manager at Amadas Industries in Virginia, echoes McHugh’s sentiments.

“With the economy the way it is, quite a few people are a little gun shy about putting in expensive equipment,” he says. “People don’t just go out and buy these units to try them . . . It’s something they have to study and they have to be sure they have the possibility of orders before they ever purchase the equipment.”

Despite differing viewpoints from manufacturers, they do agree that soil and mulch producers stand to gain more when selling bagged product compared to bulk sales. Bag sales also allow producers to expand into new markets, they note.

“You do get more for it when you bag it versus bulk,” Andrews says.

Echoing Spencer’s concern about cost justifying a packaging system, Andrews says buyers have to weigh the added costs for labor to run equipment and a sales force to sell the resulting bagged product.

Potential equipment buyers have to decide if they are “willing to step up and make that commitment,” Andrews says.

Once they make the decision to move ahead, there are several manufacturers of packaging equipment from which to choose, ranging from old-line companies such as Hamer, founded in 1927, to relative newcomers such as Rethceif Packaging, which was formed in 2005 and began manufacturing equipment two years later.

The following are among the manufacturers of bagging equipment for the soil, mulch and composting industries:

Amadas Industries

Amadas Industries, headquartered in Suffolk, Va., has been manufacturing bagging equipment since the early 1970s, and industrial sales manager Tiny Andrews says much of it is still in use today.

“We’re probably the oldest in the bagging industry,” he contends. “We’ve established the mark by which everybody else is measured.”

Amadas offers a single system utilizing manually hung pre-made bags that averages 18 to 22 bags per minute or better. The system can be upgraded and automated in stages — form, fill and seal equipment from Hamer and Premier Tech Systems can be mated to the Amadas bagger — to meet changing requirements. The Amadas bagger will handle bag capacities from 5 quarts up to 3 cubic feet.

“We make only one size bagger that’s good for soil and mulch,” Andrews says. “It will support a small operation right up to one that expands to a million-plus bag sales a year.”

The heart of the Amadas bagging system is the manual BGO3 open mouth bagger; the automated version for form, fill and seal is the BGO4. The BGO3 allows up to 20 bag filling volumes to be preset, allowing a user to quickly and easily select or change bag volume. Additional bagging control parameters can be set to increase production and decrease product spillage.

Andrews says the packaging machine is a “pretty simple system” that requires little more than standard maintenance.

“It just keeps on running and it lasts,” he says.

Amadas, which employs about 150 people, also manufactures other industrial machinery ranging from waste paper recycling equipment to peanut harvesting and processing equipment, including what it describes as the largest and highest capacity self-propelled peanut combine in the world in a joint venture with John Deere.

The company was formed in 1963 when Oliver K. Hobbs and J. Carlie Adams teamed up to produce peanut harvesting and processing equipment.

“After more than four decades we take pride in our growth,” the company says. “Equipment manufactured by Amadas is at work throughout the United States and in many countries around the world. We continue to strive to develop innovative products, manufacture those products to the highest quality standards and support our products with after-sales product support second to none.”

For more information:

Amadas Industries

1100 Holland Road

Suffolk, VA 23434

Phone: (757) 539-0231

Web: www.amadas.com

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Hamer

Hamer Automated Packaging Systems is one of the oldest of the bagging equipment manufacturers in North America, getting its start in 1927 when the company created a unique sealing mechanism for large flour bags produced by the many mills in the Minneapolis area.

Since then, the Minnesota-headquartered company has expanded its offerings, with automated packaging systems used not only for soil and mulch, but for a wide variety of industrial bagging applications including concrete/aggregates, chemicals, fertilizer, salt and many others. Hamer introduced its automated packaging equipment to the soil and mulch industry in 1994 and has grown to be one of the largest equipment suppliers in that field.

Today, the company offers a full line of manual bagging using volume or by net weighing, bag closing, automated form, fill and seal bagging, bulk in-feed conveyors and hoppers and fully automated turn-key systems with palletizers, stretch wrappers and stretch hooders. In the past five years, Hamer has doubled its product offerings and incorporated engineering solutions to eliminate traditional bagging line down time issues.

According to Brown, Hamer’s new Model 2090 form, fill and seal machine is one of the fastest on the market, running at speeds of up to 34 bags per minute. Typical lawn and garden capacity ranges from 8 quarts to 3 cubic feet. Hamer’s new line of automation equipment runs 2 cubic foot mulch bags or one-half cubic foot soil bags at speeds of 26 to 30 bags per minute.

Brown says the company has strived to keep its equipment simple to operate and maintain. “We keep all our machines very mechanically oriented so an operator makes simple adjustments instead of having to learn software and do a lot of programming,” he says. Wear parts on all Hamer lawn and garden machines have been reduced by more than 50 percent, according to the company. Brown adds that production uptime is the company’s number one focus.

Brown says customer support is what helps differentiate Hamer from other companies. “We understand that when a customer purchases equipment from us, their business is dependent on that equipment staying running and producing product for them,” he says. “A big focus of our company is service and support. We provide very knowledgeable technical support and are committed to same-day, next-day parts support.”

For more information:

Hamer

14650 28th Ave N

Plymouth, MN 55447-4821

Phone: (763) 231-0100

Toll Free: (800) 927-4674

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Premier Tech Chronos

Premier Tech Chronos is one of the largest providers of bagging, palletizing and wrapping equipment for the soil and mulch industry.

The company, headquartered in Canada with a plant there as well as in Utah, Thailand and Italy, began in 1989 as an offshoot to sister company Premier Tech Horticulture, a peat moss and soil producer. That initial relationship served as a successful building block for the packaging business, which today encompasses such industries as food, chemical and industrial.

“Premier Tech Chronos has acquired a unique expertise in growing media packaging through a privileged partnership with its sister company Premier Tech Horticulture . . .” the company says. “Moreover, the team at PTC understands that in today’s market the production of top-quality soils and fertilizers is the only way for producers to become leaders.

“More than ever, automation is the key to long-term success for all growing media producers,” it adds. “State-of-the-art equipment improves global performance through increased productivity while ensuring product quality and consistency.”

For the soil and mulch industry, Premier Tech Chronos offers the FFS-200 series form, fill and seal bagger with a speed of up to 32 bags per minute. The bagger is one of the fastest in the industry, according to the company, and can handle capacities from 8 quarts to 3 cubic feet.

In addition to speed, field sales manager Brian McHugh touts the fact it the company can provide “the bagger, the palletizer and the wrapper to wrap your pallet.”

McHugh says the company’s AP-400 series high-level automatic bag palletizer is a “perfect fit” with the FFS-200 series bagger and its stretch wrapper or recently launched LH-400 automatic stretch hooder.

“Automated palletizing offers many benefits for soil and mulch producers such as increasing the competitiveness of your product in the marketplace, reducing health and safety hazards on the job, producing neat, solid pallet loads every time and optimizing your warehouse space,” he says.

“Everything is built by us,” McHugh adds.

The company also offers a heavy duty manual bagger designed to handle products such as mulch, bark, compost and soils. It can reach capacities of up to 20 bags per minute and can be upgraded to an automatic packaging system.

For more information:

Premier Tech Chronos

1, Avenue Premier

Rivière-du-Loup, QC G5R 6C1 Canada

Phone: (418) 868-8324

Web: www.premiertechchronos.com

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Rethceif Packaging

Rethceif Packaging is a relative newcomer to the packaging industry, having started manufacturing its form, fill and seal equipment in 2007 with a design emphasis called “irreducible complexity.”

“It means we try to eliminate every moving part we can, or remove all the complexity we can,” explains founder and president Tim Fiechter (the company name is his last name spelled backwards). “When we design, we try to design a machine that gives a great final package without a lot of movement and wear on equipment.”

The company currently offers six different baggers, selling its equipment nationwide and worldwide. The equipment is designed for industries that need bags containing 1 cubic foot or more of product, such as wood shavings for horse bedding, insulation for homes, seed, fertilizer and soil and mulch.

“Our extensive experience with form, fill, and seal has allowed us to manufacture a machine whose quality and innovative design goes unmatched in today’s market,” the company says.

The company’s VCFFS form, fill and seal vertical compression bagger, for example, allows users to compress products with a wide variety of characteristics in varying size packages with minimal changeover time, Fiechter says.

“Customers really appreciate the low changeover time,” Fiechter adds. “Being able to completely change their compressed bag size in 15 minutes with no tools provides them a much higher level of productivity.”

Design and assembly of the equipment is done at the Ossian, Ind., facility near Fort Wayne. It employs 14 people. Manufacturing of the parts is outsourced.

The lack of complexity of the baggers means customers don’t have to inventory many parts, Fiechter says. Parts manuals list vendor part numbers so customers can get parts, if needed, directly from a local supplier.

Rethceif Packaging only offers form, fill and seal baggers, which Fiechter says reduce the costs of bags by up to 20 percent. That can amount to millions of dollars in savings for a large customer in one year’s time, he says.

Fiechter stresses the innovative design aspect of his equipment and the concept of irreducible complexity.

“As for our customers, it’s the way to really lower their cost once they have our bagger in place,” he says. “They’re not calling us for a lot of spare parts. They’re not calling us for a lot of service. They’re not calling us for maintenance.”

For more information:

Rethceif Packaging

420 Industrial Parkway

Ossian, IN 46777

Phone: (260) 622-7200

Toll Free: (866) 298-1876

Web: www.rethceif.com

Conclusion
Companies large and small offer a wide variety of options for soil and mulch producers who want to expand their markets by offering bagged products. Manufacturers such as Rethceif Packaging, Premier Tech Systems, Hamer and Amadas Industries all stand ready to provide the lawn and garden industry with the assistance and machinery to go out and bag new business.