Formulated Feed Bagging Machine in Belgium

The Investment Started at the End of the Production Process

Feed mills do not always need to expand from the raw-material intake forward.

Sometimes the last process becomes the first place that needs attention.

The Belgian customer's pellet production section could already manufacture the required feed. Finished pellets passed through cooling and screening before reaching the storage and packing area. For bulk orders, the existing arrangement remained adequate. Bagged products created a different workload.

The older packing station required more operator attention and restricted the rate at which finished pellets could be transferred into bags during concentrated packaging periods.

This affected production organization rather than pellet quality.

The customer therefore isolated the packaging stage and upgraded only that part of the plant.

Why DCS-50K Was Selected for the Belgian Feed Mill

The product entering this machine was finished pellet feed.

That immediately narrowed the equipment choice.

RICHI selected the DCS-50K, which uses gravity feeding and is designed for granular materials. Its 5–6 bags per minute packaging speed offered a practical balance between output and the customer's existing downstream bag-handling arrangement.

A higher-speed DCS-50P*2 was unnecessary for this retrofit.

The packaging machine had to match the real flow arriving from finished-product storage as well as the capacity of the operators and downstream bag handling. Increasing the nominal bagging speed beyond those surrounding conditions would simply move the bottleneck to another position.

This Machine Was Assigned to Pellet Feed

The customer produced formulated feeds for different livestock requirements, but the new bagging station was configured around pellet products.

That distinction matters when choosing a bagging machine.

RICHI's DCS series includes equipment for pellets, powders and premixes, and the feeding mechanism changes with the material. The DCS-50K uses gravity feeding because free-flowing finished pellets can move into the weighing section without the forced conveying required for many powder products.

If this project had focused on mash feed, the DCS-50F with screw feeding would have been a more relevant option.

If the customer had required one station to handle both powder and pellet products, RICHI could instead have evaluated the belt-fed DCS-50P or DCS-50P*2.

For this installation, however, adding functions that were not required would have made the selection less precise rather than more flexible.

Bagging Speed Had to Match the Existing Factory

The figure of 5–6 bags per minute was considered within the surrounding process.

A bagging machine never operates alone in practice.

Finished pellets must arrive at the machine at a sufficiently stable rate. Empty bags have to be positioned. Filled bags need to leave the weighing station and proceed to the selected sealing operation. Operators or downstream handling equipment then have to remove and organize the finished packages.

RICHI therefore did not select the model from packaging speed alone.

The customer's existing finished-product bin, discharge arrangement, working platform and available floor space were reviewed as part of the retrofit interface.

The objective was continuous, manageable bagging rather than the highest number printed in the equipment catalogue.

Several Feed Formulas Could Share the Same Packing Station

A commercial feed mill may change formulations many times without changing the physical packaging equipment.

The Belgian customer could use the DCS-50K for different qualified pellet-feed batches as long as the products remained compatible with the machine and the required bagging arrangement.

This was useful for a plant serving more than one livestock market.

Belgium has an established compound-feed industry producing feeds for cattle, pigs, poultry and other farm animals. The Belgian Feed Association also describes compound feed as a combination of ingredients selected according to animal nutritional requirements rather than a single raw material.

For the bagging section, however, the important question was not the nutritional formula itself.

It was the physical form reaching the machine.

A cattle pellet and a poultry pellet can have different formulations and dimensions while still being suitable for gravity-fed weighing and bagging. The operator changes production according to the plant schedule while maintaining the required separation and cleaning procedures between products.

Packaging Accuracy Was Part of the Upgrade

Speed alone would not have solved the customer's problem.

The DCS-50K has a specified static packaging accuracy of ±0.1% and dynamic accuracy of ±0.2%.

In a commercial feed operation, consistent weighing helps the plant control the amount of product entering each package and reduces unnecessary variation during repetitive bagging.

The weighing section therefore had to receive material steadily.

Irregular surges from the upstream bin could affect the operating rhythm even when the weighing equipment itself was correctly configured. RICHI reviewed the connection between the finished-product storage point and the gravity-fed bagging machine so that pellet discharge could remain stable during operation.

Commissioning included checking the weighing cycle with the customer's actual finished feed rather than treating the machine as an isolated scale.

The Retrofit Had to Fit the Existing Packing Area

Unlike a greenfield feed factory, this project had fixed boundaries.

The building already existed.

So did the pellet outlet, finished-product storage arrangement and operator working area.

Machine selection therefore had to consider installation dimensions, inlet elevation, discharge position, electrical connection and access for routine maintenance.

The bagging machine was positioned so operators could work around it without unnecessarily restructuring the surrounding production area.

This is one reason a standalone machine project can require more engineering attention than its size suggests.

The equipment package may be small, but every interface is predetermined by something already installed.

The Customer Could Choose the Required Bag Sealing Method

Different feed producers use different bag materials and closing methods.

The DCS bagging system can be configured with thermoplastic sealing, seam sealing or a mixed sealing arrangement according to the customer's packaging requirements.

RICHI therefore treated bag closing as part of the packaging specification rather than assuming that every formulated feed producer used the same bag.

Before final configuration, the customer needed to confirm the intended bag type, packaging format and downstream handling method.

This allowed the weighing and bag-closing sections to work as one packaging station rather than two separately selected pieces of equipment.

Installation Did Not Interrupt the Whole Feed Mill

One advantage of replacing or adding a downstream machine is that the work can be concentrated in a defined area.

The customer did not need to rebuild its grinding system.

The batching and mixing section remained in place.

The pellet mill did not need to be replaced.

Cooling and screening were retained.

Preparation instead focused on the point where finished pellets entered the new DCS-50K and where filled bags left it.

RICHI supplied the installation information needed for the customer to prepare the site before equipment arrival. Electrical requirements, equipment positioning and upstream and downstream connections could therefore be arranged around the existing factory.

During commissioning, the operating sequence was checked from pellet discharge through weighing and bagging to bag closing.

From Qingdao to Antwerp

The DCS-50K Automatic Packing Machine was manufactured and inspected in China before shipment from Qingdao Port to Antwerp, Belgium.

Because this was a standalone packaging-equipment order rather than a complete feed production line, the shipment was comparatively compact. That did not remove the need for preparation at the destination.

Before arrival, the customer confirmed the installation position and the interfaces with the existing finished-feed system.

RICHI provided technical documentation and remote or on-site support according to the project service arrangement, covering installation, commissioning, weighing adjustment, normal operation and routine maintenance.

Operator instruction also addressed the points that affect daily bagging performance: stable product feeding, weighing checks, cleaning, inspection of moving components and recognition of abnormal operating conditions.

One Machine Removed One Specific Constraint

The Belgian customer did not purchase the DCS-50K because its feed plant lacked production equipment.

It purchased the machine because one existing production stage no longer matched the way finished feed was being dispatched.

That difference shaped the entire project.

The correct solution was not another pellet mill, a larger mixer or a complete new formulated feed production line. It was one gravity-fed bagging machine placed where finished pellets changed from bulk material into saleable bags.

For this plant, the DCS-50K provided 5–6 bags per minute without unnecessarily oversizing the packing station. It also allowed the customer to retain the production equipment that still met its needs.

RICHI Machinery applies the same principle when evaluating other feed bagging projects. Pellet feed, mash feed, premix, required packaging speed, bag type, existing bin arrangement and downstream handling all influence the correct machine.

A standalone formulated feed bagging machine should solve the packaging problem the factory actually has—not create a new bottleneck somewhere else.