Why buy a Workhorse Canner?
When you purchase a can filling machine you need to look at what is important to your business. Our customers are like us, hard working and trying to build an honest business while rolling with the punches. They just need a break… we’re that break.
Cleanability.
If you look at cross section diagrams of other systems, you will see threads, o-rings, seals and non-wetted surfaces on their filling valves. An intelligent operator knows that these types of filling valves need complete disassembly for proper cleaning. Filling isn’t rocket science, you need to plug a hole in a tube to start and stop fluid flow… pretty simple, but let some engineers loose on it and it gets pretty complicated very quickly.
WHC uses tubing over a hose barb technology, we squish the tube to stop fluid flow. It’s the simplest to clean and operate. No dead spots, threads, o-rings, RP Seals… nothing.
We build with stainless steel and food grade plastic (ie NO ALUMINUM) so no problem using hot caustic for cleaning… kind of a no brainer.
Quality of fill.
Shielding your product from the dreaded DO is our main concern. We utilize a dedicated CO2 pre-purge station with large diameter tubes to gently place CO2 into the bottom of the can prior to filling.
The next station is the filling station. The Filling Tubes lower through the layer of CO2 and starts filling to a conductivity sensor which turns the product off at the correct fill level.
From the filling station we release the filled cans into a CO2 tunnel prior to lid placement. The CO2 tunnel allows a mushroom head to form on the can and expel any possible O2 in the head space of the can. The mushroom head is scraped off and a lid is placed on the can with under lid gassing.
Quality of seam.
Our seamer is perhaps the beefiest and simplest in the craft canning world. It’s simple to operate, simple to dial in, and once dialed in and locked into place, it stays dialed in. It’s also very simple to fix unlike many in the industry these days and you don’t need a two year diploma in robotics to make an adjustment.
Production Output / Low Labour.
We try to achieve 24 cpm with a 473 ml can. We also try to make the filler operational once fully dialed in to be operated by a single person. If you look on our videos, most operators are ignoring the in-feed and filler and are concentrating on packing cans into cases. This is an important point… for sure there are faster and more costly machines in the market but if you need four people to operate then really what is the value of it.
Cost.
We’re definitely less than all our competitors… how do we do this? We make a fair and honest mark-up on our product. You might want to ask our competitors why they are so over priced. The answer is simple really, we are a small team of can filler specialists with low overheads living simple lives in a beautiful part of the world. Our shop is small and we’re not trying to get every deal, we don’t have a team of engineers to over complicate things and our fearless leader doesn’t have a private plane and condo in Whistler.
Service.
If our customers have a problem, they phone and somebody answers the phone and they get an answer. If something needs sorting out that can’t be handled over the phone… somebody hops on a plane and sorts it out. How do we do this? Firstly you build it so it doesn’t break and secondly you make it simple so anybody can fix it. It’s not about the money, it’s about standing behind what you say you are going to deliver.