Machine record at Waterman Onions

Waterman Onions in Emmeloord (The Netherlands) stacked with her Verbruggen-palletizer over 20 million bags in 15 years setting a new machine record. The machine handled over 20,000 tons of onions per year, or about 20% of the annual sales of the onion sorting- and packaging at the company.

Increase from 1 to 5 palletizers

Waterman Onions delivers shallots, yellow and red onions in various packages for the world market all year round. In 1998 they acquired their first Verbruggen-palletizer. Now, they are running five palletizers of the renowned equipment manufacturer, who is also located in Emmeloord. Erik Waterman says his machines are reliable and durable. The palletizers also use a special manipulator equipped with centering flaps allowing packages of any size to be accurately centered and stacked. Finished pallet stacks are extremely stable due to overlapping stacking process, four sided stacking bin and compression application.

Strive for 50 million bags

“We strive to push the counter of the VE-900 from 20 million to 50 million stacked bags”, Wim Waterman says. The VE-900 is also equipped with smart software which automatically adjusts the speed of the driving frame to the amount of infeed bags in order to avoid unnecessary wear. The driving frame therefore only runs at maximum speed when the infeed demands. Such preventive maintenance efforts allow the machines stay in optimal condition, ensuring continuity of production.

On the picture: Ton van ’t Hof (left), Verbruggen Emmeloord B.V., congratulates Erik Waterman (middle) and Wim Waterman (right) with the machine record of 20 million stacked bags.