and Merrell needed an equipment supplier that could help him find a solution for Plato's unique product. After much trial and error, Merrell found a supplier willing to jump in with both feet and help him increase capacity and solve the efficiency issues that threatened the future of the meat sticks line. Merrell recognizes that a lot of equipment manufacturers work primarily with large companies where a fraction of a percent of improvement in efficiency can equate to a lot simply because of the scale. That wasn't the case for a company the size of Plato with annual sales around $15 million. Plato needed to realize substantial improvement for the benefits to outweigh the cost of new equipment. Innovate or die trying Finding innovative solutions is nothing new for Merrell. From day one there have been very few out-of-the box solutions that worked for the company's unique prodPlato sold more last year in dollar value of the single-serve configuration than it sold in any other configuration. BAKING YOUR PET TREATS WITH HAAS (AASç-EINCKE#ONVECTION/VEN uniform baking of rotary molded and extruded pet treat products with easy-to-use recipe control full humidity control for optimum baking climate heat recovery unit for saving up to 15% of surplus heat and reduction of CO2 emission hygienic design with easy access to the inside of the oven modular design allowing easy installation and expansion MORE IDEAS ƒMORE VALUE ƒ MORE FLEXIBILITY www.haas.com www.petfoodprocessing.net | March 2018 | PET FOOD PROCESSING 25http://www.haas.com