Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery will debut its High-Speed, Ultra-Hygienic Rotary Tray Filling System at PACK EXPO International 2026.
The machine is designed for leafy greens and other loose-fill products and can run at speeds of up to 100 trays per minute. Mark Navin, vice president of business development at Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery, told Packaging OEM that the company developed the system after an OEM and customers asked for higher speeds and easier changeovers.
“Uptime and reducing changeover times — line efficiency continues to be at an all-time high demand,” said Navin. “If we can make a machine that can change over more quickly and keep the line running, everybody’s happier, and line efficiency goes up.”
For leafy greens, part of that challenge is keeping product inside the tray and out of the seal area. Spee-Dee added three servo-controlled tamping points to help push product farther into the tray.
Navin said similar tray filling systems typically use one or two tamping mechanisms.
“We added a third one, so it gives us more chance to tamp the product into the tray,” Navin said. “On each of those three tamps, we can dial those in and make them recipe-driven as to how far we’re tamping each one.”
Each tamp uses a linear servo, allowing operators to set the tamping distance through the machine’s recipe controls. The linear washdown servos also replace a belt-driven system, which Navin said makes the equipment easier to clean.
Spee-Dee also moved more machine adjustments into recipes to reduce mechanical changes during changeovers. When operators do need to swap parts, such as for a different tray size, the machine uses a patented magnetic system to hold change parts in place without hardware.
“The fewer touch points, the fewer times an operator or a mechanic has to go in and make a mechanical change, the better,” Navin said. “And that’s really part of the design.”
The magnetic system was adapted from Spee-Dee’s higher-speed continuous-motion rotary fillers. The new tray filler uses intermittent motion to index trays through the machine.
Spee-Dee also integrated a dual-discharge multihead weigher into the filler frame, reducing the number of feet required on the production floor and helping keep the machine’s overall footprint smaller.
“Everybody’s trying to do more with less in less space,” Navin said.
Spee-Dee built the tray filler with an open stainless-steel frame and sloped surfaces to support cleaning and drainage. The hygienic design extends to the hardware, including nuts and bolts with molded-in gaskets.
“The whole theory is if you can’t see it, you can’t clean it,” Navin said. “We really took that into consideration when we designed the machine.”
The system is also all-electric. Spee-Dee eliminated air cylinders used to manipulate the trays and replaced them with electric motors. Navin said removing air lines reduces air use and can also help reduce condensation in the wet environments where the equipment operates.
The machine is primarily geared toward indoor agriculture and vertical farms that package leafy greens in trays rather than bags. Navin said packaging the product where it is grown can also reduce handling before it reaches consumers.
“We saw an opportunity there and came up with what we feel is a really cool solution for it,” said Navin.
Spee-Dee will show the tray filling system in booth S-1647 at PACK EXPO International, which takes place at McCormick Place in Chicago from October 18-21.