Craemer box ideal for meat processing company

Proving to be extremely robust even at high trip rates, the CB3 pallet box is a combination of pallet and box made by Craemer. A large German-Polish meat processing company discovered this plastic pallet box by chance. It left such a good impression that the company immediately placed an order with the Craemer group’s German headquarters via its representative office in Poland.

Besides being durable, these resistant boxes have to meet the highest hygiene requirements of the kebab producer: They are used to transport animal by-products which are converted into animal feed. After successful test runs, the company is now gradually replacing its entire stock of containers from a competing company whose boxes were previously used and have proven inappropriate for this demanding task.

The Craemer Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of durable logistics and waste disposal solutions with over 60 years of experience in plastics processing. Established in 1912 and now in its fifth generation, this family-owned company operates its headquarters in Germany as well as three other plants in Europe. As a further business field, plastics processing was added to metal processing at the end of the 1950s. Craemer initially manufactured large plastic injection-mould containers. In 1967, the Group obtained a patent for the world’s first one-piece pallet. The portfolio now comprises plastic pallets for a wide variety of requirements as well as a wide range of transport and storage containers – from stacking boxes, round containers and tubs to pallet boxes.

All Craemer products are made of high-quality polyethylene fulfilling the most stringent requirements and excel with their tried and tested quality. Since 2014, the Craemer Group has been operating a representative office in Poland named Craemer GmbH Przedstawicielstwo w Polsce. The daily business consists in the sales promotion of Craemer pallets or pallet boxes as well as plastic containers for storage and transport.

Booming exports

Established in 2008 as a German-Polish joint-venture, the kebab company produces various types of doner kebab – poultry, beef and veal, depending on the customer’s wishes. The founders have years of experience with this grilled meat dish that originally comes from Turkey and which has taken most of Europe and half of the world’s countries by storm. Approved for intra-community trade, the manufacturer also cooperates with many member countries of the European Union.

The company – which boast to be one of the best producers in the industry, striving for the top position in the domestic as well as in the European market – is booming and growing fast. In western Poland, a new production facility has now been opened for processing chicken meat into kebab dishes which are then exported to the Central and Western European markets.

“Our new customer came across Craemer and their plastic pallet boxes in an astonishing way,” explains Arkadiusz Michal Wissuwa, Area Sales Manager Poland. “Another Polish meat processor, whose category 3 abattoir waste goes into animal feed, had already been using several hundred of our light grey CB3 for this purpose. This company was one of our first CB3 customers in Poland, by the way.”

Replacing unstable boxes with CB3

“This customer then systematically replaced the boxes they were using at the time with our CB3,” Arkadiusz Michal Wissuwa continues, “because the pallet boxes are returned empty from the animal feed manufacturer to the meat processing companies every time, sometimes boxes accidentally end up not with the original owner but with other producers of abattoir waste.”

This is how this kebab producer came across Craemer boxes. “They were looking for very stable and hygienic pallet boxes because the competitor’s boxes they had been using broke quickly,” Wissuwa explains. “They soon realised that the CB3 box is much better, very stable and durable, even at high trip rates.”

On the new customer’s part, the requirements concerning the boxes are also very demanding: “Filling them, transporting them over a distance of 100km and more to the next processing site, where they are emptied. The Craemer pallet boxes proved to withstand these challenges, whereas the competitor’s boxes broke quickly during usage.”

Since the market launch of the Craemer pallet box CB3 in 2017, the stable combination of pallet and box made of food-safe polyethylene has been a success. The fact that the load carrier is integral part of the container makes the logistics processes in many industries considerably easier. The CB3 box with the industrial pallet dimension of 1,200mm x 1,000mm and a height of 720mm is made in one piece with three longitudinal runners and has a capacity of 610 litres.

Thanks to its sturdy construction and features, it offers many advantages for daily operations: Additional ribs above the entry openings provide increased impact protection against forklift tines; its smooth inner surfaces ensure easy emptying, simple cleaning and good drying properties; thanks to the three robust runners the box runs smoothly on automated conveyor systems; integrated locking devices at the four corners ensure safe stacking of boxes (stacking cams); optional retrofitting with RFID transponders for tracking the transport and shipping route via radio frequency identification is possible thanks to a special retaining device; a strippled area allows easy attachment and removal of temporary stickers; various fields for prints provide space for individual hot stamping, and the space-saving three-in-two stacking permits efficient use of space during empty transport and storage.

Tried and tested in food industry

Craemer pallet boxes are mainly used in the food processing industry, especially for transporting and storing meat, as well as poultry and fish. Numerous other industries profit from the advantages of CB3, among others the waste disposal and trade sector.

The German-Polish kebab producer needed reliable transport containers in its new plant to transport abattoir waste – chicken bones from its production of grilled poultry – to an animal feed manufacturer. Category 3 waste (animal by-products; ABPs – not suitable for human consumption with the lowest risk level) is subject to high safety and hygiene requirements, even though it may only be processed as ingredient in animal feeds. Searching for a sturdy, high-quality alternative to the currently used more fragile boxes, the management finally found what they were looking for at Craemer.

Easy cleaning and drying

“The CB3 pallet box fully meets the criteria of the kebab producer and also fulfils the legally defined hygiene regulations, of course,” confirms Wissuwa, who is responsible for the sale of Craemer products in western Poland. And what is more, the material prevents chemical reactions when it gets into contact with fats and acids, which is an essential quality feature given the often very fatty animal by-products. Thanks to the smooth inner surfaces, CB3 boxes can be easily cleaned using high pressure with hot water and food-safe chemicals.

Since March 2022, the German-Polish company has been using a few dozen CB3 boxes in basalt grey, which is one of seven standard colours in addition to optional special colours. To distinguish deliveries from different companies, each pallet box was hot-printed with the word “BEST” to identify the owner.

“This imprint is appropriate: Our pallet boxes are simply the best,” says the sales expert from Craemer’s representative office in Poland. Since the CB3 pallet box has continued to prove itself as a safe and sturdy all-rounder in use, the second delivery already took place in autumn 2022. In future, the “best” solution will systematically replace the former boxes until the poultry kebab producer works exclusively with the reliable CB3.