Downey's packaging equipment needs today rest on a longer manufacturing history than most Gateway Cities suburbs can claim. A local milk agency once marketed product for 700 Downey-area dairymen running herds as large as 2,000 head, generating more than a million dollars a month, before citrus took over as the leading local crop. The city's founder helped pioneer orange cultivation that grew into one of Southern California's biggest cash crops, and by 1935 Downey was known simply as an orange-grove town. The bigger shift came during World War II, when a wartime aircraft plant became Downey's largest employer, producing roughly 15 percent of the country's military aircraft by 1941 and pioneering the first powered aircraft assembly line. That same site went on to build Apollo and Space Shuttle hardware before closing in 1999, leaving a manufacturing workforce the city's current bottling operation now draws on.

Downey's present-day economy still includes that beverage-bottling thread: a major beverage bottler operates a bottling facility in the city today and ranks among its top-ten employers, with just over a thousand jobs tied to the plant. That high-volume filling and casing operation is squarely in PLAN IT's territory. Our Mars Series VFFS machines handle vertical form fill seal packaging for bagged and pouched products, and our automatic case packers keep pace with bottling lines that need cases built, filled and sealed without slowing down. Producers across Downey's food and beverage sector can also draw on our broader food and beverage industry solutions and the full range of machinery on our California locations page. We supply and support equipment for manufacturers across the state with in-stock machines and a consultative approach, and Downey is no exception, even without a PLAN IT facility here. Our solutions page details the full lineup available to you.