Alexandria has no packaging automation history of its own, but it sits inside a logistics corridor with one of the longest paper trails in the country. The Potomac River carried Virginia's export economy through this city for two centuries: in 1730, colonial law designated a warehouse at the mouth of Hunting Creek, on what's now Alexandria's waterfront, as one of the colony's official tobacco-inspection points, and every hogshead of Virginia-grown tobacco bound for export had to pass through a site like it before sale. Merchants and planters built the young port into a significant Atlantic trading hub through the 18th century, supplying the Continental Army during the Revolution, and by World War II, a US Navy plant on that same waterfront was producing torpedoes instead of moving tobacco.

None of that production runs today. Alexandria's economy now centers on federal government work, professional and technology services, and Old Town tourism, not manufacturing, and no active food, beverage, or packaging plant operates within the city itself. What hasn't gone away is the region around it: Northern Virginia sits inside one of the busiest logistics corridors on the East Coast, feeding food distribution and government supply chains that stretch well beyond Alexandria's borders. You know your product; PLAN IT supplies the packaging equipment for a Northern Virginia producer or co-packer in this corridor, from Mars Series VFFS baggers to stick pack and sachet machines and automatic case packers. Even without a plant in Alexandria, a Northern Virginia producer or co-packer can draw on our food and beverage packaging solutions and our full range of solutions.