Chesapeake sits on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, inside the Hampton Roads logistics corridor that feeds the Port of Virginia's Norfolk terminals. Packaging equipment in this corridor has to keep pace with serious grain-export volume. A grain-processing operation here runs the largest export, import, and domestic grain-handling terminal on the East Coast, including a soybean-extraction plant producing soybean meal and crude degummed soybean oil from grain supplied by more than 1,300 Virginia farmers, over 45 percent of the state's entire soybean crop. That operation announced a $59.1 million expansion in 2022 to modernize and increase production of soybean meal, oil, and hulls. Granular and powder product moving through the plant at that volume needs bagging lines built for continuous duty, not short batch runs, which is exactly what auger filling and VFFS bagging equipment are designed for.

That same corridor gives Chesapeake roughly 3 million square feet of freezer and cooler cold-storage space within a 20-minute drive of the Port of Virginia's Norfolk terminals, supporting grocery, seafood, and produce distribution alongside the grain business. A major CPG retail and distribution company is also headquartered in Chesapeake, and a family-owned bakery and creamery has run here for more than 75 years. For the granular side of that mix, PLAN IT's EliteFill auger fillers handle soybean meal and hull products with tight fill-weight control, Mars Series VFFS baggers form and seal bags at line speed, and checkweighers confirm every bag hits spec before it leaves the plant. PackMaster cobot palletizers then stack filled bags and cases for the short haul to port. Chesapeake producers can bring that experience to a river-front operation: browse our Virginia locations page, our powder and granular industry page, our auger and powder filling equipment, our pre-made pouch and bagging machines, and our full range of packaging solutions to find the fit for your operation.