For over 130 years, Sweet Candy Company has thrived on a legacy of quality confections. When growing customer demand for flexible pack formats and shelf-ready packaging began to stretch its existing end-of-line operations, the Sweet Candy team knew who to contact.

The answer came in the form of a new, fully integrated packaging line with Delkor’s HSP Series Case Packer, a vision-based case packing system reportedly purpose-built to handle variety and velocity.

“Our new Delkor HSP is a high-speed end-of-line packaging system that we installed with our GEA line to meet our new demands for automation and new pack formats,” says Geoff Dzuida, VP of operations at Sweet Candy Company.

Wrapping automation around variety

Sweet Candy produces an extensive range of candies—from soft taffies to chocolate-covered confections—all destined for customers across North America. This meant its new case packing system had to handle multiple bag sizes, weights from 2-oz to 32-oz, and retail-ready presentations, all at speeds up to 50 cases/min.

“We were looking to meet the speed of a GEA TwinTube bagger, and the Delkor HSP was a great solution for us,” Dzuida explains. “We were able to run at 340 pouches per minute on the Delkor HSP. We really needed a solution that was going to manage a lot of different pack formats … while also managing the high speeds.”

Delkor’s Cabrio Case was also a crucial piece of the puzzle—offering both robust protection during distribution and high-impact merchandising on the shelf. With its simple tear-away feature and clean face-forward design, the Cabrio Case checked all the boxes for Sweet’s retail partners.

Seamless execution, end-to-end

For the Sweet Candy team, success wasn’t just about speed or format handling. It was about finding a partner who could deliver a turnkey solution that would simplify integration and reduce project risk.

“Delkor really made it easy for us,” says Dzuida. “They were able to deliver an integrated solution that picked up from the bagger and then delivered our end case ... we really needed somebody who could wrap it all up in one piece and hand it over to us.”

Built on trust—and results

After more than a year and a half in operation, the line has proven itself across all shifts, formats, and throughput targets.

“It’s run and it’s run, and we run it three shifts, doing everything we expected it to do. What else can you ask for?” said Rick Kay, president and CEO of Sweet Candy Company. “When I would talk to my friends and colleagues in the candy industry about our challenge and our goals, it was, ‘You’ve got to get to Delkor. You’ve got to see Delkor.’ … they delivered on time, complete—it was seamless.”

“We like to work with the leaders in the industry. With Delkor, we absolutely landed on that,” Kay continued. “We have continuous ongoing support training as we add new pack sizes. The flexibility, the capabilities of being able to accommodate different bag weighments, different case packs—great stuff!”

Looking ahead

Sweet Candy is already planning what’s next.

“We’ve been running this machine for a year and a half and couldn’t be happier with it,” says Kay. “It’s serving our needs with all the shelf-ready applications in today’s world. In fact, we’re super excited about ordering our second line here pretty quick.”

As demand continues to grow and SKU variety expands, the partnership between Sweet Candy and Delkor remains central to planning future upgrades, Sweet Candy says.

A full video of Sweet Candy’s experience is available here.

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