Back in April, a quiet revolution hit PCA's packing area with the installation of a $95,000 Verbruggen "palletizer" direct from The Netherlands.

Raw Plant Manager Chris Seng, (right), explained that this handy piece of equipment had increased the speed of product handling in the loading area and was far more efficient than previous procedures.

The palletizer is coupled with PCA's heat-seal packager which ensures a smooth flow of product into 25kg plastic bags.

It can also handle 22kg paper bags and 40kg hessian sacks of product, (left).

The palletizer automatically stacks bags of peanut product onto a pallet ready for loading into a semi-trailer or shipping container.

The bags are automatically placed accurately in layers of four or six, depending upon the bag size, without operator intervention.

Up to 44 x 25kg bags are stacked onto one pallet for the domestic market or 40 for the export market.