Packaging Digest

Nine Lines fill $25-million sugar center

Florida Crystals expands sugar production capabilities with a new $25-million facility, filled with nine packaging lines that output a variety of sugar products in package structures ranging from 1/10-oz. packets to 100-lb. multiwall bulk bags as well as a new 48-oz. glossy sack and revised 48-oz. PVC jug...fielded by Senior Editor Lauren R. Hartman

Mix heaping portions of sugar farming, milling and refining with nine strong doses of a variety of packaging operations and the result is a sweet recipe for future success.

Onstream since June, a new $25-million packaging/warehousing facility near West Palm Beach, Fla., has rapidly expanded Florida Crystals' capabilities beyond sugar milling and refining.

The new 150,000-sq.-ft. distribution center for the wholly owned subsidiary of Flo-Sun Inc. - one of the country's largest sugar can producers - creates the only vertically integrated can sugar operation in the U.S. Each year, the company produces some 600,000 tons of raw sugar.

But there's nothing sugarcoated about the new facility. From production planning, bagging, bottling and baling to palletizing, warehousing and shipping, the plant incorporates the latest technology to save labor and promote efficiencies that allow Florida Crystals to vie with competitors in food service, food processing and retail markets.

The new operation permits the company to broaden its product line offerings and distribution base. Already, the expansion has generated so much interest that sales have surged. "Customer acceptance is enthusiastic," Rodney Rogers, VP of operations, tells PD. "We're hoping to really sweep the South with our products. It's a very exciting time for us."

The new facility packs about 30 different products, which are available across Florida in supermarkets such as Albertsons and Winn Dixie, as well as nationally in health-food stores and gourmet shops, and used in food service and food processing operations.

"The production lines pack quite a wide assortment of products in a variety of containers within the single plant," says Rogers proudly, "and we plan to add more. We hope to set an industry standard in material handling efficiency and can do it because we started with a brand new plant; there were no predefined spaces. We had a plain white sheet of paper on which we could pencil in the right kinds of efficiencies yet keep material handling time and costs in check."

Customized turnkey equipment and conveyors for the packaging lines were furnished by systems integrator Production Systems Inc. (PSI), via the plant's general building contractor, Fluor Daniel. PSI coordinated the startup, and was responsible for selection and installation of the equipment, which includes heavy-duty industrial baggers from Bemis, grocery baggers from Fawema and Temco, two vertical form/fill/seal pillow bag systems from Bosch, a continuous motion sugar packet machine from Cloud, Ishida scales from Heat and Control and a versatile twin-spout auger filler for rigid containers from AMS.

It was also PSI's job to coordinate training programs and ensure that all of the equipment worked in sync with a complex bulk sugar feeding system. Notes PSI's president Jerry Anderson: "We accomplished this using custom connecting points, conveyors and controls on each line so that one machine could smoothly transfer product to the next."

Machinery choices factored in everything from flexibility and ease of changeover to reliability and a proven track record, Rogers adds. Cost was also a primary ingredient. "The main issue was finding equipment that had proven itself in the industry," he says.

Ample product, pack mix
Having to ship much of its refined sugar to outside packagers previously prevented Florida Crystals from having as much control over its sugar operation as it wanted. An hour's drive northwest of Fort Lauderdale , the new packaging/distributing center permits Florida Crystals - and parent Flo-Sun - to control all aspects of its business, from growing and harvesting sugar cane to sugar processing, packaging, marketing, and delivery.

Products include refined white granulated sugar, powdered white sugar, light and dark brown sugar, and natural milled cane sugar, most of which is harvested from Florida Crystals' own fields. Florida Crystals also packs exotic Demerara, an unrefined cane sugar that it imports from the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The products are marketed under the 5-year-old Florida Crystals brand as well as several private labels.

Containers, just as varied as the products, include: industrial-sized pinch-bottom/open-mouth multiwall bags from 25- to 100-LB; traditional "grocery sized" paper sacks for 2- to 10-lb. quantities that are distributed to supermarkets, with a 5-lb. size being the largest volume; a 20-oz. spiral wound coffee service canister; tiny individual 1/10-oz. single serve sugar packets; and clear polyethylene film pillow-style f/f/s bags (printed rollstock for which is from Bemis) in 1- and 2-lb. sizes. Probably the most unusual containers for sugar are a 48-oz clear plastic wide-mouth jug with integral handle and 48-oz. square-bottomed sack with a high-quality glossy finish.