A filler operator and quality assurance technician review conformance to quality specifications during a production run.

The spacious 36,000-square-foot packaging facility at Wixon brings to full circle our one-stop production system for the food and beverage industry.

This technologically-advanced facility enables Wixon to handle every aspect of food and beverage ingredients and finished product manufacturing. Wixon produces a complete range of ingredients including sweet and savory flavors, ground spices, custom-blended seasonings, and food chemicals. Between its research and development center, product applications and testing facilities, production plant, and packaging center, the company can take a customer through the whole operation - from concept and product selection to a choice between flexible and rigid packaging, and on to label design and printing, point-of-purchase design options, warehousing, and distribution. It's a one-stop service.

The packaging plant, Wixon's sixth separate facility, greatly increases production capacity for both Wixon's own brands and private label products.

The single story packaging facility is 126-feet wide by 276-feet long and 24-feet high. A 10-foot high mezzanine level runs the length of the building above six packaging rooms and two enclosed blending areas. Blended seasonings and dry mixes elevated to the mezzanine level by forklifts are fed from overhead into first floor flexible packaging equipment. A sophisticated air filtration system prevents any cross-contamination from dust or odors, allowing several different types of products to be processed simultaneously in the six packaging rooms.

This facility is concentrating on a variety of flexible packaging in a full range of pouch sizes. The installation of high-tech containment equipment further enlarges choices among cartons, boxes, and canisters.

Among the computer-guided machinery options are a Bartelt Horizontal that fills 2,500 pouches per hour, a Triangle Vertical that handles 1,200 pouches per hour, and a ribbon blender that processes 8,000 pounds hourly. Also available are a second Bartelt Horizontal with a 3,800-pouch-per-hour capacity, two Hayssen Verticals which each fill 1,000 pouches per hour, and another ribbon blender that has a 4,000-pound-per-hour capacity.

Quality control procedures include metal detection for nonmetallic pouches and production line weight monitoring. Packaging system procedures make possible lot-tracking of products for additional safety and quality assurance.

In addition to blending and filling operations, the building has two-story storage capacity for raw materials on one side of the mezzanine, and on the other, space for rigid packaging plus cartoning and storage of products ready to be shipped.

Customer packaging orders have also been increasing steadily in both the flexible and rigid packaging divisions.

The Flex-Pack Center has both vertical and horizontal capabilities. In vertical pouching, Wixon can run preprint or plain film, hot-stamping, embossing, and jet-coating - virtually any application. Included in the horizontal pouching capabilities are multi-stage filling and both continuous and intermittent cartoning to accommodate automatic insertion.

In its rigid packaging division, Wixon offers customers choices from a one ounce glass jar fill up to a 160cc jar fill. Completed orders from both the flexible and rigid packaging divisions can also be warehoused and routed through Wixon's 110,000-square-foot distribution center.

Wixon's Flex-Pack Center is also ISO 9001 certified.