Craft beer is what Grand Rapids makes today. The city has earned the nickname 'Beer City USA' for its concentration of craft breweries, and that beverage output is where packaging automation earns its place on a local production floor: canning and bottling lines need case erectors and sealers that keep pace with retail volume. Furniture built Grand Rapids before beer did. The city became known nationally as the 'Furniture City' in the late 19th century, its premier standing showcased at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. That trade had a supply chain behind it: Grand Rapids grew first as a major 19th-century lumbering center, floating logs down the Grand River and shipping lumber out through the Great Lakes, before manufacturers turned that timber into the furniture that built the city's name. An early automobile manufacturer also ran an assembly plant in the city from 1901 to 1921, one more sign that Grand Rapids has shifted its manufacturing base more than once.

That run of reinvention, from lumber to furniture to beer, is the kind of manufacturing base that knows how to adapt, and today it's the craft brewers and food co-packers who need the packaging line built around growth. Mars Series vertical form-fill-seal (VFFS) packaging machines bag and pouch product for the food and beverage co-packers working alongside those breweries, while our automatic case packers keep canned and bottled product moving onto pallets. You can find the full machine lineup on our Michigan location page and our food and beverage industry page, and our solutions page shows how a canning or bottling line gets built out end to end.