Plant sterol ester customer finds cost savings from innovative heated packaging solution

One of our food manufacturer customers adds cholesterol-reducing plant sterol esters to their buttery spreads. Small but valuable quantities of CoroWise® plant sterol esters can be lost in standard packaging due to the unique product form. So, in order to ensure that the company could use every last drop of their purchased CoroWise® product, Cargill developed a new package. Cargill engineers designed a unique heated tote that helps manage the esters more conveniently and efficiently, achieving significant cost savings.

Sterol esters are plant sterols that have been "esterified," or converted into a fat-soluble product that is roughly 60% plant sterols and 40% fatty acids. The esterification changes the product from a waxy pellet to one with the consistency of petroleum jelly for use in creamy products such as spreads. Sterol esters are frozen to protect them from oxidation and must be melted to 100° Fahrenheit for incorporation into a food product.

The packaging solution

Before we designed the packaging solution for our customer, we shipped plant sterol esters in five-gallon phenolic-lined steel drums that had to be heated in a special "hot box" or "hot room" at the manufacturing site. It was expensive to heat a box or room for the 24 hours that it typically took to melt the product.

What's more, because it's impossible to completely empty a steel drum, valuable plant sterol esters were wasted. And, if the manufacturer didn't need the contents of the entire drum for a batch, they had to take the time to flush the drum with nitrogen and put it back into frozen storage until they needed the rest.

Our heated fiberboard totes have a ready-to-launch heating source.  When the totes arrive at the facility, operations employees just engage the heating source in the tote to bring the sterol esters quickly to 100°F so they can be pumped out of the tote. An energy-draining hot box or hot room is no longer needed.

In addition to the advantage of being heated, the totes are filled according to the batch size that our customer needs. Because one tote has enough for one batch, there's no need to use multiple drums or to store and freeze the balance. This convenience saves both time and money. Likewise, the totes empty completely, so no sterol esters are lost.

Since developing the tote system nearly two years ago, we can supply sterol esters this way across the globe. We also use the system to supply another global, large-volume spread customer. Each tote is the length and width of a wooden pallet and is about four feet tall. Because the single-use totes are made of fiberboard, they're easier to recycle than the steel drums.

Saving money with Cargill innovations

Our customer was very excited when we designed the totes. In addition to saving them money, our innovation demonstrated that Cargill is willing and able to create cost management solutions for them. Our totes are another example of how Cargill can identify opportunities for cost savings at any point along a supply chain—even in the shipping container.