The Right Stuff

For more than 60 years, Atwood Heritage Processing has been producing quality summer sausage for smoked meat enthusiasts.

The company was founded by Noah S. Martin, who enjoyed making summer sausage as a hobby through the 1950s.

Over the next several years, popularity of his sausages grew steadily, and in 1962, Noah decided to purchase his first smokehouse and turn his hobby into a business.

The company enjoyed regular growth over the next few decades.

In the early 1990s, Martin established N.S. Martin Processing with the assistance of his granddaughter, Rebecca Martin, and in 2001, he relocated his business to its current location near Atwood, Ont.

In 2010, Rebecca sold the business to Jonathan and Marie Ropp, who rebranded the company to Atwood Heritage Processing.

Atwood Heritage Processing’s biggest claim to fame are the specialty cold-smoked, dry-cured summer sausages that come in a variety of flavors including Original, Spicy, Garlic, and All-Beef with Maple Syrup varieties.

The company also makes various dried pepperette sticks marketed under the Snack Sticks label.

These are a truly unique product that for whatever reasons only a few manufacturers produce in Ontario.

The Snack Sticks are made using authentic cold smoke and fermentation process that takes about 11 days to go from being stuffed to being fully packaged for the market.

They come in a broad variety of flavor options, including its 100% Grass-Fed Beef line of products that are offered in Honey Garlic, Mild and Hot; an All-Beef with Maple Syrup product; and Hot, Medium and Mild Snack Sticks that are made with a combination of beef and pork.

The company has two production plants on-site: the original provincially-licensed processing plant; and a second federally-licenced processing plant that was built in 2017.

With the market demand for Atwood Heritage Processing’s products growing significantly in recent years, the company recently decided to accelerate that growth further by investing in some of the latest technologies to keep pace and to ensure consistently high product quality.

To accomplish that, Atwood management reached out to Burlington, Ont.-based food packaging specialists Reiser Canada Inc. of Burlington, Ont.

After some consultations and demonstrations, Atwood proceeded to purchase a Variovac Optimus 35 thermoformer, a Vemag HP 15 stuffer, and a Vemag TM208 de-linker—all commissioned in August of 2023.

Atwood Heritage was first introduced to Reiser’s technologies several years ago at a meat and poultry industry trade show, but no sale was made at that time.

However, three years later Aled Bryant joined Reiser Canada as its southwestern Ontario sales representative, and he decided to knock on their doors.

“That’s how the relationship started: just me showing up and sitting down with them, getting to understand their business, what their trajectory is, what their plans look like, and so on,” Bryant recalls.

“There was nothing pertinent going on at that time, but then fast-forward about a year later, and there was some interest.”

As Bryant relates, Atwood Heritage Processing was interested in upgrading its packaging line to solve the biggest bottleneck at its production facility, while also improving the look of its retail packaging, single packs, and other product options.

“This is when the Variovac discussions began,” Bryant recalls. “In most instances in plants, your packaging is the bottleneck.

“So we spent time determining which are their largest-volume products, and then we built the machine backwards from that.”

As Bryant recalls, Reiser Canada spent a lot of time going through the package layout drawings with actual products—making sure that Atwood Heritage Processing would get the thermoforming solution it needed to eliminate its packaging bottleneck.

“We were using a double-vacuum chamber that had been doing well for us for many years, but we were getting behind in our packaging,” says Jonathan Ropp.

Adds Bryant: “We understood there were going to be multiple changeovers, so we made that part simple for them with our roller top die, which is an easy solution for changing your forming station that ensures a really rapid changeover—keeping your productivity at maximum levels,” Bryant adds.

Reiser Canada also designed its thermoforming solution to be compact and fit efficiently within their production space.

“We spent time making sure it was going to be the right fit in their packaging room,” Bryant says.

According to Bryant, the new Variovac thermoformer eliminated the need to load the bags manually—generating instant labour savings.

“Since you’re not spending time putting the product into the pouch, you’re able to reduce your labour numbers,” say Bryant.

“I believe they had six people around the table loading into the bags and onto the double chamber, whereas now they’ve got just two people putting product into the thermoformer—allowing them to move people to other parts of the facility,” Bryant says.

For its part, the new Vemag HP 15 E stuffer The Vemag HP 15 stuffer was deemed vital to improving the consistency of the company’s various Snack Sticks products.

“We used to have another stuffer, but it was not consistent in making the size of Snack Sticks that we wanted,” Ropp explains.

“We were looking at what we could do, and that took us down the road to check out the Vemag line.”

In short order, the Vemag HP 15 E stuffer allowed Atwood Heritage to have consistent production for its Snack Sticks, with equal lengths and weights per portion.

Bryant says a small footprint was one of the advantages that Reiser Canada was able to provide as part of its total solution.

“Typically, when you’re looking at a stuffing line, you have the filler or the stuffer, the Vemag, and then you would have a linker in the middle of it, he explains.

“So we were doing natural casings, we would need to have a four-and-a-half- or five-feet-long attachment that goes in front of that before you have the hanging line,” Bryant says.

“But based on their products, we were able to use some of our technologies and eliminate the need for a large linker.”

Instead, Reiser Canada was able to supply a built-in two-feet-long linker went straight onto the hanging line.

“This gave us a competitive advantage from a footprint standpoint,” Bryant says.

Eric Bauman, general manager for Atwood Heritage Processing, agrees that the consistency of the Snack Sticks lengths and weights has improved dramatically since the installation of the Vemag HP 15 E stuffer.

“The stuffer that was in there previously could not do a consistent job and it varied in weight and length, which we noticed when we were making packages and weighing them,” Bauman says.

“We did not have a stuffing line previously,” he notes, “so now we’re saving a lot of time by being able to take the product off the stuffing line and putting it on the smoke trucks—as opposed to manually draping the product over a station and then placing them onto the smoke trucks.

“It has increased our consistency and our production levels.”

Another advantage of the new Reiser Canada equipment is that it is easy for employees to learn.

“It takes a few weeks before an employee is proficient,” Bauman remarks, “but once they understand them, the machines are pretty simple to operate.

“Reiser offered good service and was there to help train people,” he adds.

“They went out of their way to make that happen, and were there for us as long as we needed them,” says Bauman, noting that having Reiser Canada being located only a 90-minute drive away is a big bonus.

In addition to Reiser’s contributions, leading flexible packaging solutions provider Duropac also played a role in helping Atwood Heritage Processing transition from using digitally-printed vacuum pouches to a high-speed inline automated vacuum packaging process.

Operating plants in Candiac, Que., and Mississauga, Ont., provided superior film structures to provide optimal shelf-life and an attractive look for Atwood’s products.

“What sets Duropac apart is their remarkable flexibility, allowing us to manage multiple SKUs (stock-keeping units) with exceptionally low minimum requirements,” Ropp relates.

“Their support from the very beginning to the end of the process has been outstanding,” he says, “making Duropac an invaluable partner for us at Atwood Heritage.

“The clarity of Duropac’s films is absolutely exceptional.”

Focusing on solving all of Atwood Heritage Processing’s problems, rather than just selling them a piece of equipment is what makes Reiser Canada stand out from the competition,” according to Bryant.

“We weren’t even looking for them to buy a Vemag stuffer from this sale, but we had to solve the problem with their size variation before they could move into getting a Variovac,” he recalls.

“I could have just sold them the Variovac and said, ‘You’re on your own,’ but that’s just not how Reiser works.

“That’s not the type of relationship we like to build,” Bryant states.

“And so we really concentrated on solving their problems to make sure that the packaging operation went as smoothly as possible, which ended up getting us a sale on the stuffing side of their operation,” Bryant says.

Before installing the new Variovac thermoforming line, Atwood Heritage Processing was losing days of production every week due to the packaging bottleneck.

“We could only run about three days per week of production in order to keep pace with the packaging,” Bauman recalls.

But since commissioning the equipment from Reiser Canada, the plant’s packaging efficiencies have improved dramatically.

“It has been a tremendous change in our packaging operation,” says Ropp.

“Our packaging was our bottleneck, but that’s been totally changed.”

Bauman agrees: “We’re not only faster with the new packaging equipment, but we’re also more efficient because we’re able to cut back on the number of staff needed to package our products.

“It’s also easier to print the lot codes and package ID numbers right on the packages, whereas before we were printing them on the pouches before they were stuffed.

“We also have a bigger area on the back of the package to print the lot number, he says, “giving it a much nicer look.

“Above all,” he concludes, “it allows us to save about 70 per cent of or packaging costs with the thermoforming system compared to the old packaging system we used before.”