The Drake Blog

For this month’s Drake Blog, we decided to give you a peak behind the scenes of how Drake operates. Specifically, we want to tell you the lengths to which Drake goes to get our equipment ready and have it on site at trade shows. It’s a lot of work, but we do this so our customers can see our loaders up close and fully understand how our loaders can help them.

For the upcoming Process Expo 2021, we are sending our latest SR-400 sausage loading system with our custom-designed Drake robot. But before the loader gets to Process Expo, there’s a lot of things that must happen:

1. Which equipment do we send?

The first challenge is determining which cutting-edge loading technology to show at the trade show. Drake has a lot of highly engineered equipment, so deciding what to send is not as easy as it sounds.

2. Is the design ready?

Our Product Development and Marketing team discusses the design to ensure it features our latest innovative technology. The SR-400 has been custom designed for the needs of the food industry. It has been field tested and is ready for your facility.

Further, we took our decades of experience engineering for a was- down environment and created the industry’s cleanest food-grade robot, the Drake robot. With the ability to carry a 6 kg (13.2 lb) load at full speed with stainless steel motors and reducers, the Drake robot is built to withstand the needs of your facility. Stop by Booth 2031 at Process Expo to see the SR-400 and Drake robot in action.

3. Time to build.

At Drake, we design all of our equipment to our customer’s individual needs. And since every loader is largely custom designed, it is rare to have a loader sitting around. Thus, we often have to build the loader specifically for a trade show.

Fortunately, we have our own highly skilled in-house manufacturing personnel. From start to finish, they machine, weld, and assemble the components of each loader. Using high-quality stainless steel and food-grade plastic, we build the best-in-class food loading equipment that you have come to expect from Drake.

4. Time to ship.

Once Drake knows where and when the loader needs to ship, our in-house service technicians test the loader to ensure it operates as intended. Then they build a customized crate to ship the loader. Their goal is to ensure that the loader arrives safely at its destination, whether that be on the trade show floor or at your facility.

When the loader arrives at our trade show booth, a Drake service technician will be onsite to ensure everything runs just right, like we do at our customer’s facilities.

5. While all this is happening …

As part of the Middleby Corporation, we coordinate with our division to facilitate the trade show booth’s layout and the display of our equipment. We want our customers to see our SR-400 loader with the Drake Robot and know that we are a part of Middleby Food Processing & Packaging’s whole line of solutions to their food processing needs.

Stop by Booth 2031 at Process Expo 2021 to see our Drake loader and the rest of the Middleby Food Processing & Packaging innovations.  

Drake – Your Partner in Automating the Food Industry.