3 Easy to Install Robotics for Food and Beverage Plants (Fast ROI Certified)
Walk into almost any small food or beverage plant today, and you’ll see the same story.
Workers bent over long shifts, packing boxes by hand. Forklifts weave in and out, driven by tired operators. Cleaning routines are done late into the night with hoses and buckets.
Most managers already know automation can make life easier. But it has always sounded like something for the big players. Too expensive. Too complicated. Too risky.
Here’s the truth: robotics for food and beverage plants is no longer out of reach. It’s here. It’s simple. And in the right places, it pays itself back in just 90 days.
This Verdusco Automation article presents three robotics technologies made for food and beverage plants like yours. They’re easy to install. They are fast ROI certified. And they bring real relief to your team.
Practical Robotics for Food & Beverage Plants
Collaborative Robots (Cobots) for Pick and Place
They’re small, easy to program, and safe. Pick-and-place cobots are robotic arms designed to work right alongside your employees. They have built-in sensors that stop the motion when a human is nearby.
Implementation
Picture a snack facility. Bags come off a conveyor, and someone has to quickly grab and place them into display boxes. It’s a blur of hands and motion.
This is where a cobot shines. It can be set up in a corner, taught its task with a simple drag-and-drop interface (no complex coding!), and installed in less than a day.
It picks up each bag and places it into secondary packaging, hour after hour, without error.
90 Day ROI
Suppose you employ one worker per shift for eight hours, totaling 24 hours a day, five days a week:
Manual labor cost: $18/hour (wage + benefits) × 24 hours/day = $432 per day in direct labor for this one task.
Total monthly cost: $432/day × 20 days (average) = $8,640/month.
In the first 90 days, the cobot saves you $25,920 in labor costs alone. But there’s more:
Consistent speed boosts line output by 10%, adding $12,000 in revenue.
Reduced damage/rework improves by 25%, saving $13,920 over 90 days.
The initial cost of a simple cobot and gripper might be around $35,000. By month four, it’s fully paid off. By month five, it’s generating pure profit, while your employee moves into a more valuable role. Win-win.
Palletizing Robots
Every day, workers strain to stack heavy cases onto pallets. They groan under the load, and sometimes the stacks aren’t stable.
A palletizing robot changes everything. It’s a sturdy robotic arm that stacks boxes or bags neatly and consistently.
Implementation
The implementation is as simple as it gets. Set up a compact palletizing cell at the end of the conveyor belt, in a small, self-contained area. From there, the robot handles the heavy lifting, aligning every box for maximum stability and trailer capacity.
90 Day ROI
Before automation, two crew members were dedicated to palletizing. With a robot in place, they move to higher-value roles:
Labor replacement: 16 hours×$28/hour=$400/day = $40,320 over 90 days.
Safety savings: Removing this job slashes your risk of injury claims. Worker’s comp premiums drop, often saving $10,000 in the first 90 days.
Trailer capacity: Perfect stacking lets you fit 5% more product on every truck. That’s about $28,400 in savings over 90 day.
An entry-level palletizer costs around $75,000. With ≈$78,720 in combined savings and gains in just 90 days. Meanwhile, your team is safer and more productive.
Delta Robots for High-Speed Sorting
When your product is small, fragile, and flying down a conveyor belt, you need the speed and precision of a Delta Robot, also known as a Parallel Robot.
Implementation
Imagine a metallic spider hanging above your conveyor. That’s a Delta Robot. Equipped with a vision system, it identifies products racing past and sorts them with unmatched speed and accuracy.
The result? Only the best product gets packaged, while rejects are pulled automatically.
90 Day ROI
Let’s say you produce 10 tons/day, valued at $1,500/ton. Over 90 days, that’s $1,350,000 in production value. With even modest improvements:
Compliance/waste savings: Better portioning reduces giveaway, saving $40,500 in lost revenue.
Throughput gain: Faster, break-free sorting boosts capacity, generating $108,000 in additional revenue.
At $95,000, a Delta Robot cell pays itself off in 90 days and keeps adding value in realized benefits over time.
How Verdusco Automation Can Support You
We know it’s simpler said than done. That’s why we’re here for you.
At Verdusco Automation, we make automation simple and profitable for small-to-mid-sized manufacturers.
Here are three simple ways we can get you started:
High-ROI Opportunity Analysis. We walk your floor to find the single task with the fastest 90-day ROI.
Simple, Plug-and-Play Integration. We designed systems to fit into your existing lines with minimal disruption.
Operator Training and Support. We offer hands-on training for your team to transform them into skilled robot operators.
Let’s chat about your 90-day ROI plan today.
Contact Verdusco Automation!
📩: https://www.verduscoautomation.com/contact
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Note:
This article is a glimpse at the real possibilities of what robotics can do. But every plant is different. Your layout, your throughput, and your staffing needs matter. To know what fits your size and goals, you’ll want a custom analysis. That way, the ROI is not just certified. It’s tailored.
