Oakland's ties to packaging automation trace back to World War II, when its canning industry became the city's second-most valuable war contribution, trailing only shipbuilding, with the largest canneries clustered in the Fruitvale District. That wartime production sat alongside a major shipyard that built more than 100 ships during the war and a port that traces its own history back to an 1868 wharf, a legacy the Port of Oakland still carries forward, moving freight through the East Bay today. By 1920, that mix of canneries, shipbuilding, and port trade had already built a manufacturing workforce large enough to fill Oakland's factories, and canned goods moving off the Fruitvale lines needed to hit the same outbound schedule the port kept even then.

That canning and port heritage lines up directly with what we build today. Food and beverage producers packing canned, pouched, or bagged goods for shipment through a major port need packaging automation that holds up across long production runs, not equipment that slows down a supply chain already moving at port speed. Our Mars Series VFFS baggers fill and seal pouches on the line, and our PackMaster cobot palletizer gets canned and packaged goods boxed, sealed, and palletized fast enough to keep up with outbound freight schedules. For Oakland and East Bay food producers shipping through the port, we keep that equipment in stock, so a new line doesn't wait on the next sailing schedule to start moving product.