Mr. Srinivasan T, Managing Director of JFM Verbruggen India Private Limited, speaks to Food & Beverages Processing Magazine about the company’s palletizing technology, its approach to customisation, and its plans for the Indian market.
JFM Verbruggen India Private Limited is the Indian arm of Verbruggen Palletizing Solutions, a Dutch specialist in end-of-line palletizing technology. Founded in the Netherlands in 1991 and now approaching its 35th year, Verbruggen has grown into a global company with more than 2,400 installations worldwide, a new headquarters in Emmeloord, and branch offices across the United States, India and Argentina. In India, under the leadership of Managing Director Srinivasan T, the company serves the agriculture, food, feed and non-food manufacturing sectors. In this interview, he outlines the company’s capabilities, its approach to customisation, and its priorities for the Indian market.
JFM Verbruggen combines Dutch palletizing expertise with its presence in India. Could you briefly explain the company’s core capabilities and the end-of-line solutions it currently offers to Indian industries?
Verbruggen’s story began in 1991, when two Dutch brothers built a machine to automatically stack bags of seed potatoes. That same practical, engineering-first approach still defines us today. Everything — design, software, assembly and after-sales support — is handled in-house, which is what lets us guarantee consistency from our Netherlands headquarters. For Indian manufacturers, our core offering spans the complete end-of-line journey: the V-Stack series of box, carton and crate palletizers; the VPM-5 for compact bag palletizing; the V-Weigh, V-Load and V-Pack systems that weigh, place and bag product before it ever reaches the palletizer; and a full range of wrapping machines that secure the finished pallet for transport. In short, whatever an Indian plant needs to stack — bags, boxes, cartons, crates or wraps — we have a machine engineered to do it reliably, every single time.
What makes Verbruggen’s palletizing systems different from conventional end-of-line automation solutions in terms of design, flexibility, reliability, and operating efficiency?
Our philosophy is one strong, proven platform with multiple performance tiers, rather than a one-size-fits-all machine. The V-Stack range, for instance, scales from a compact entry-level unit suited to tight floor space, up to a high-speed system capable of handling more than 80 – 100 boxes a minute — so a customer never overpays for capacity they don’t need, nor compromises on capacity they do. On reliability, we lean on direct drum-motor drives, dual-magazine bag placers that can be refilled without halting the line, and intelligent touchscreen software that flags problems early. Many of our machines run daily for over 25 years, and remote diagnostics mean our service team can often resolve an issue before it ever becomes downtime. That combination of modularity, robust build, and remote support is what genuinely sets us apart from conventional automation suppliers.
Verbruggen serves agriculture, feed, food, and non-food industries. How does the company customise its palletizing solutions to meet the different handling and production requirements of these sectors?
Customisation isn’t an add-on for us — it’s built into how every machine is designed. Our palletizers use configurable stacking patterns that operators can adjust themselves or that our service team can update remotely, and on the hardware side we offer options such as centering flaps for narrow bags, extra collar sections to speed up changeovers between pallet sizes, and a choice of pallet transport methods. That flexibility matters because the requirements genuinely differ: agriculture and feed customers often need to handle heavier, bulkier bags of grains, seeds or fertilizer; food and snack manufacturers need gentler handling for cartons and delicate packaging; non-food industries bring their own footprint and throughput constraints. To make sure every customer gets the right configuration, we also offer a free Stack Check — a one-hour advisory session in which our specialists review a plant’s current process and pinpoint exactly where a tailored solution adds the most value.
How does Verbruggen integrate robotics, automation, and intelligent controls into its palletizing systems to improve line speed, accuracy, and overall plant productivity?
Every Verbruggen system is built around intelligent, touchscreen-driven controls and configurable stacking-pattern software that keep placement accurate at speed, with our fastest V-Stack models running at more than 80 boxes a minute. Ahead of the palletizer, our V-Weigh, V-Load and V-Pack systems automate weighing, bag placement and bagging itself, turning what used to be several manual steps into one continuous, hands-off flow from empty bag to fully stacked, wrapped pallet. Remote access technology lets our engineers monitor and diagnose machines from anywhere, which keeps unplanned stoppages to a minimum. Together, this level of automation and intelligent control is what allows Indian plants to scale up throughput without having to scale up their labour dependency in the same proportion.
For Indian manufacturers, investment cost and return on investment are important considerations. How does Verbruggen help customers evaluate the business case for automating their end-of-line operations?
We start with the free Stack Check advisory session, where we assess a customer’s existing process before recommending any equipment — the goal is a solution sized to their actual need, not an oversold system. Our machines are engineered for a strong return on investment, typically within two to three years, which comes from a combination of factors: reduced labour dependency, fewer product-damage losses from more stable stacks, low-maintenance construction that keeps service costs down, and machines built to run reliably for decades rather than years. We also back every installation with spare-parts kits, operator training, and a customer portal with full manuals, so the total cost of ownership stays predictable long after the initial investment.
What has been the market response to Verbruggen’s solutions in India, and which industries or applications are currently showing the strongest demand for automated palletizing?
The response from Indian manufacturers has been genuinely encouraging, and it mirrors what we are seeing across the food processing sector more broadly. Government-backed growth — through schemes such as the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Processing Industry and the PM Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises scheme — is pushing processors to scale up capacity quickly, and manual, labour-intensive stacking simply cannot keep pace with that growth on speed, consistency, or worker safety. We are seeing the strongest interest from agriculture-linked processing — potatoes, onions, grains and seeds — alongside food, snacks and confectioning, and pet food and animal feed manufacturers, all of whom are under pressure to modernise their end-of-line operations to match upstream investments in production capacity.
As manufacturers move towards smart factories and increasingly automated production lines, what are JFM Verbruggen India’s key priorities for technology development, localisation, and market expansion in India?
India’s growth trajectory is a natural fit for the kind of reliable, high-throughput, low-maintenance palletizing technology we have spent more than three decades perfecting, and our priorities reflect that. On technology, we will keep building on our intelligent controls, remote diagnostics, and configurable software so our systems slot easily into increasingly connected, smart-factory environments. On localisation, our focus is on strengthening service and support infrastructure on the ground in India, so customers get the same fast, hands-on response that has defined Verbruggen globally. And on market expansion, we intend to deepen our presence across agriculture, food, pet food and non-food manufacturing as Indian processors continue to invest in capacity — because as that capacity grows, dependable end-of-line automation stops being optional and becomes essential.
