DS Smith and Delhaize boost wine packaging line productivity by 27%

As retailers and manufacturers face increasing pressure to improve productivity and maintain product availability, DS Smith has collaborated with Delhaize, a multinational retail and wholesale holding company, to increase output on a wine packaging line by 27%. At Delhaize’s winery in Belgium, they redesigned both the packaging and the machinery used to process it, increasing throughput by 400 packs per hour.

A key focus of the project was Ahold Delhaize's bag in box wine range.

The winery in Zellik produces wine products for both Delhaize in Belgium and Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, making production efficiency and reliability essential for a smooth supply chain across multiple retail markets. Despite a competitive marketplace, the Delhaize brand has remained resilient, reporting growth in its bag in box wine sales. As the packaging format becomes increasingly important within the wine portfolio, Delhaize wanted to create additional capacity and efficiency within their overall production process.

To address this challenge, the company chose an integrated approach. Rather than sourcing the cardboard packaging and machinery separately, the companies collaborated to design and build a dedicated forming machine that is specifically engineered for Delhaize's bag in box packaging format and production requirements. The machine ensures that both the corrugated packaging and machine performance are engineered together rather than optimised separately, resulting in optimum stability and efficiency across the manufacturing process, including improved pack quality and eliminating nearly all interruptions on the production line.

As a result of the new approach, the quality of the packaging improved and the production speeds increased from 1500 to 1900 product packs per hour, increasing throughput by 27%. The line became more reliable, required fewer operators and made more efficient use of warehouse capacity. The reduced number of operators required to run the line enabled Delhaize to redeploy resources to strengthen quality control activities. Storage efficiency also improved, with warehouse capacity increasing from 5000 to 6000 packs per storage location.

‘What sets DS Smith apart is its ability to optimise both packaging and machinery as a single solution,’ said Hervé Louis, production and technical manager at Delhaize, Belgium. ‘The interaction between those two elements is critical, and by aligning them from the start, we have been able to increase throughput, reduce downtime and make better use of our existing capacity. I am impressed with DS Smith’s service levels.’

Kim Radelet, sales marketing and innovation director Central EMEA, at DS Smith, added: ‘This project demonstrates that the greatest opportunities for improvement often lie beyond the packaging itself. By looking at the entire system, from packaging design and materials to machinery performance, storage and operational efficiency, we helped Delhaize unlock 27% more capacity from its existing operation. That is where real value is created: not in optimising individual components, but in improving the performance of the entire value chain.’