Combing the aisles of Chicago's McCormick Place like thousands of other Pack Expo 2000 attendees, Warren Debnam of Hanover, PA-based Green Glen Produce carried more than his briefcase and business cards. He also carried a bag he wanted to use to package branded fresh green beans in 1- and 2-lb portions for sale through retail outlets.

The problem with the bag he carried was that it was only available to him premade and wicketed, a format that was too expensive from both materials and labor-cost standpoints. Debnam's mission at Pack Expo was to find a vertical form/fill/seal machine that would allow him to make bags from rollstock instead of buying premade bags.

Complicating Debnam's search, however, was that he wanted his bags to incorporate a unique mesh material called CLAF®, made by Atlanta Nisseki CLAF, Inc., or ANCI (Kennesaw, GA). CLAF is a three-layer coextrusion of low-density polyethylene/HDPE/ LDPE. ANCI runs the three-layer structure through a unique cutting system that turns the material into mesh. The central layer of HDPE gives the material the toughness it needs, and the LDPE provides heat sealability.

The bag Debnam envisioned for his green bean package was to have a CLAF back panel and a front panel of LDPE. The beauty of this combination approach, says Debnam, is that CLAF's mesh structure provides sufficient breathability to prevent condensation from forming inside the bag and spoiling the beans. Yet the LDPE front panel can carry nicely printed graphics.

Buying such bags premade was one thing. But putting CLAF to work on a vf/f/s machine is more complex, because filling has to be factored in. Also, the rollstock is not the smoothest of substrates. It's half LDPE and half CLAF. A flexible film converter joins the two in the middle with a continuous heat seal. The machineability of such a structure is naturally tricky because it means pulling dissimilar materials over a forming collar and through the filling and heat-sealing stations - ideally, at high speeds.

While Chris and Larry evidently have spunk and business smarts, success also hinges on their ability to pick the right technology.

In the beginning, Kraves deployed a 35-year-old monolayer bagger, manufactured by Wright Machinery. Finnson borrowed $5,000 and used his mechanical know-how to rebuild the machine from the ground up.

Finnson says it took him about three months, working around-the-clock, to rebuild the machine and outfit it with digital controls that would enable it to read opaque bags.

While the mono bagger can no longer keep up with the current production demands, Finnson is still holding on to the machine - declaring that it is not for sale at any price.

Should Kraves' Winnipeg operation grow much larger, the machine will probably reside in the factory lobby as a sort of monument to Finnson's and Emery's ingenuity.

Sentimentality aside, Kraves requires state-of-the-art machinery to maintain, and enlarge, its market share. To achieve this, they turned to Matrix Packaging Machinery Inc. of Saukville, Wisconsin. Not unlike Kraves, Matrix is a feisty "new kid on the block." In business since 1988, the company has found a niche providing machinery for the entry-level and small-scale market application - a low-cost alternative to the typical high-volume, and high-cost, form-and-fill machinery.

"In the last five or six years, we've experienced tremendous growth," claims vice-president Chip Simenz. "We've been doing things that other manufacturers don't. We're not a fat company, but we're a healthy one."

The mandate of Matrix Packaging Machinery is to deliver rugged, well-engineered, cost-competitive, easy-to-use packaging systems backed by outstanding customer support. As far as Finnson is concerned, Matrix has talked the talk and walked the walk.

"In terms of ease-of-operation, access to components, cleanup, and speed and weight accuracies, I've seen nothing better on the market."

"It's so simple; yet it's so incredibly sophisticated in a lot of ways."

A notable feature of the Matrix ProSeries form-and-fillers is that all the components are nonproprietary. In other words, if you have a Matrix machine, your're not a slave to Matrix components.

The ProSeries models have springless hoppers, and the leader drives are totally enclosed. As well, the product contact parts can be quickly removed without tools. Add it all up and you have a machine that's easy to clean.

For newcomers to the machines, the ProSeries models are easy to learn. The graphics from the high-resolution display are easy to read, and there are extensive self-diagnostic functions that allow operators to quickly recover from a fault.

Made of stainless steel, the machine has speed capabilities of up to 95 bags per minute, depending on the size of the bag and the product.

"If you're doing high volumes of two or three products, you may want to go with something else," says Simenz. "The ProSeries is a good machine for a co-packer who's doing a lot of differnt bags and products."

At Kraves, the ProSeries model is augmented by a dependable Yamato scale.

Matrix is a young ambitious company; a point that was not lost on Finnson. "Here's a small, young company in the vertical form-and-fill machinery end of it, and we're a small, young candy manufacturer. The dynamics were there."

As Kraves grows, change is inevitable. Yet, there are things that stay the same. For example, Finnson and Emery remain hands-on when it comes to developing new products, despite their executive status in the burgeoning company.

Their latest offering is Cookies and Clods, a combination clodhopper-and-choclate cookie bit Kraves is launching for Air Canada.

"In my opinion, it's one of our more exciting products," says Finnson. "I would say it's probably our best.

"That's the key. We just keep getting better."