Packaging
Federal Equipment Company buys and sells used packaging machinery in Cleveland, OH, for every stage of a line, from fillers, form-fill-seal machines, and blister machines to labelers, case packers, palletizers, and stretch wrappers. We keep most of it in more than 1 million sq ft of storage, available for inspection. Our stock leans toward pharmaceutical and supplement packaging, and we also handle food, chemical, and industrial packaging machinery.
What this covers
Packaging machinery changes less from one industry to the next than process equipment does. A case packer, a taper, or a stretch wrapper does the same job whether the case holds supplement bottles or jugs of lubricant. What changes is the container, the line speed, and what touches the product.
Most of our packaging stock comes out of drug and supplement plants. Labelers, conveyors, coders, liquid fillers, form-fill-seal machines, and cappers lead it, followed by inspection systems, capsule checkweighers, tablet metal detectors, blister machines, powder fillers, and cartoners. Food, chemical, and industrial machines come through less often, usually when a plant closes or goes to auction.
We are a third-generation family business and have bought and sold used process and packaging equipment since 1957. We sell single machines and complete lines, and we buy surplus outright or on consignment.
Drug and supplement makers will find packaging alongside the process equipment on our used pharmaceutical equipment, solid dosage equipment, and nutraceutical and supplement equipment pages. For sterile vial and syringe filling, see our aseptic processing equipment page.
Packaging machinery leaves a plant for the same reasons process equipment does.
Brand, generic, and supplement manufacturers release packaging equipment when they close a site, consolidate products, or move a product to another plant. The plant taking on the product often needs a line of its own to run it.
Contract packagers release equipment when a client program ends, and they buy when they take on a new one. Some have sold surplus to us and bought from us as well.
Food, personal care, and chemical plants sell their packaging lines when they close, usually along with the process equipment. We have auctioned packaging equipment from snack food, cereal, confectionery, spirits, soap, and lubricant plants.
By stage of the line
A packaging line is easiest to shop by stage. Primary machines fill and close the container that touches the product. Secondary machines identify and group the packs, and end-of-line machines pack the shipping cases and build the load. Conveyors, coders, and inspection equipment tie the stages together.
Primary packaging puts the product into its first package and closes it. On a bottle line that means filling or counting, inserting cotton or a desiccant, capping, and induction sealing. Form-fill-seal machines make pouches, sachets, and stick packs from a reel of film, and blister machines form and seal unit-dose cards. Flow wrappers and baggers close a product into film.
Secondary machines identify the primary pack and group it for sale. Labelers, neck banders, and sleevers dress the container, and outserters attach a folded leaflet. Cartoners open a flat carton, load the pack and a leaflet, and close it. Bundlers and shrink tunnels collate packs in film.
End-of-line machines pack and seal shipping cases and build the load. Case erectors form the case, case packers and tray packers load it, tapers seal it, palletizers stack it, and stretch wrappers secure the load. Tapers, palletizers, and stretch wrappers handle corrugated cases whatever is inside them, so they move between industries more easily than anything upstream.
Conveyors carry product between stations, and accumulation tables and conveyors buffer it when one machine stops. Bottle unscramblers and orienters feed containers upright, and bowl feeders deliver caps, desiccants, and other components. Conveyor height, width, and direction of travel decide how easily a used machine drops into a line.
Coders print lot numbers and expiration dates on each pack and case. Checkweighers reject packs outside a weight range, and metal detectors and vision systems catch contamination and missing or misplaced components. Drug plants also run capsule checkweighers and tablet metal detectors, usually right after the capsule filler or tablet press.
A line that comes out of one plant often keeps the format parts, conveyors, and controls that ran together there, but confirm on the listing what is included. We sell complete packaging lines from the warehouse and at auction, including liquid filling lines and blister lines, along with the single machines that fill a gap. A whole line still has to be checked against your containers and your floor plan.
Primary packaging
Secondary packaging
Conveying and feeding
Coding and inspection
Beyond drug packaging
Our listings lean toward drug and supplement packaging, but the machines below are ones we have bought and sold for other industries. What is listed today is only part of what passes through our hands, so ask for what you need even when you do not see it.
On the food side, we have bought and sold vertical form-fill-seal baggers fed by multihead weighers, horizontal flow wrappers, pouch fillers, and food-grade coders. A set of flow wrappers last ran sliced cheese, and a pair of pouch fillers last ran mixed drinks. We have also auctioned packaging equipment from snack food, cereal, bakery, confectionery, and spirits plants.
Chemical packaging runs on heavier equipment: pail denesters, pail fillers and lidders, drum filling systems that fill by weight, and jerrycan fillers. We have run auctions of packaging and processing equipment from lubricant, soap, and photochemical plants.
Dry products leave the line in bags, drums, and bulk bags. We have handled valve bag packers, open-mouth baggers with bag clamps and pinch or heat sealers, drum filling stations, and bulk bag fillers. An animal nutrition plant sold its powder processing and packaging equipment through one of our auctions.
Personal care plants run fillers, tube fillers, labelers, and case packers much like a drug plant does, and medical device plants seal product into pouches and trays. A sachet machine that came through ran toothpaste, and a horizontal form-fill-seal machine ran cosmetic cream samples. Soap, lotion, and medical device plants have sold packaging equipment through our auctions.
The process side of these plants is covered on our food and beverage equipment, chemical process equipment, and plastics processing equipment pages.
Equipment names
Listings use several names for the same machine. Here is which of them mean the same thing.
A vertical form-fill-seal machine, shortened to VFFS or simply called a bagger, forms film into a tube around a fill tube, fills it, and seals it into a pillow bag. Snack food lines feed it from a multihead weigher, which listings also call a combination scale or bucket scale. Horizontal machines make flat pouches, multi-lane machines make sachets and stick packs, and bags-on-a-roll baggers open and seal premade bags.
A flow wrapper, also called a horizontal flow wrapper or HFFS wrapper, wraps a product in a continuous film tube with a fin seal and two end seals. It suits solid items of a regular shape, from food portions to blister cards. Box motion designs keep the end seal jaws on the film longer, and an overwrapper folds film around a carton instead of forming a tube.
Listings may call the same coder an ink jet printer, a date coder, or a marking system. Ink jet coders are the ones we see most, with laser coders and hot stamp printers less often. A print-and-apply labeler prints a label and places it, usually on a case.
Checkweigher and check weigher are the same machine, and Hi-Speed is a Mettler Toledo line name, not a type. A standard checkweigher weighs finished packs on a belt, while a capsule checkweigher weighs every capsule as it leaves the capsule filling machine. Tablet metal detectors are compact units sized for tablets and capsules, some combined with a deduster, and industrial metal detectors inspect packed product on a conveyor.
An unscrambler, also called an orienter, stands loose bottles upright. A cottoner inserts a cotton coil, a desiccant feeder drops in a canister or pouch, and an induction sealer, also called a cap sealer or foil sealer, bonds the foil liner to the bottle. Retorquers tighten caps again after induction sealing, neck banders apply tamper-evident bands, and sleevers apply full-body shrink sleeve labels.
A case erector forms a flat corrugated blank into a case, a case packer loads it, and a taper seals the top. Case packers load from the top or the side, and robotic designs use a pick-and-place arm. Tray formers make the open trays that go under a shrink-wrapped bundle.
Floor-level palletizers take cases in at floor height, while gantry and robotic palletizers stack cases with an overhead axis or an articulated arm. A stretch wrapper is also called a pallet wrapper. Turntable designs rotate the load, and rotary arm and straddle designs carry the film around a load that stays still.
Manufacturers
Federal Equipment Company does not build packaging machinery. Every machine we sell was built by someone else, and the OEMs below are among those whose machines reach us, grouped by where they sit on the line. Model series recur for years, which makes them a better guide than any single listing.
| Stage | Manufacturers and model series |
|---|---|
| Filling, capping, and sealing | Kaps All cappers and bottle unscramblers, Surekap SK cappers and retorquers, Filamatic, Cozzoli, and Capmatic liquid fillers, All-Fill auger fillers, Lakso cottoners, and Enercon, Pillar Unifoiler, Lepel, and Sigma CapSeal induction sealers. |
| Form-fill-seal, blister, and wrapping | Uhlmann UPS and Klockner EAS and CP blister machines, Sepha deblistering and leak test units, Zed Industries 15-series sealers, Hayssen Ultima and Ohlson vertical form-fill-seal machines with Ishida multihead weighers, Automated Packaging Systems Autobag baggers, Wrapade strip packers, and TevoPharm, Doboy, and Ilapak flow wrappers. |
| Cartoning, labeling, and bundling | Jones CMV vertical cartoners, Uhlmann C-series, Marchesini MA, IWKA CP, and Bosch CUT and CUC cartoners, New Jersey Machine and NJM, Accraply, Quadrel, and Weber Marking labelers, MGS outserters, Pester PEWO, Omega, and Multipack bundlers, and Axon EZ neck banders. |
| Case packing and end of line | Skinetta CP, Pester, and Schubert case packers, Columbia FL floor-level palletizers, Cermex gantry and MG2 robotic palletizers, Lantech stretch wrappers and case erectors, and 3M and Little David case tapers. |
| Conveying and feeding | Hytrol conveyors, Garvey accumulation and bi-flow conveyors, Pace Packaging and New England Machinery bottle unscramblers, Palace Packaging Machines desiccant feeders, and Hoppmann bowl feeders. |
| Coding and inspection | Videojet Excel and Domino ink jet coders, Mettler Toledo Hi-Speed and Garvens checkweighers, CEIA THS and Lock MET 30+ tablet metal detectors, Safeline and Goring Kerr metal detectors, CI Electronics SADE, Harro Hofliger KWS, IMA Precisa, and Bosch KKE capsule checkweighers, and Seidenader and Optel inspection systems. |
Brand pages
All manufacturers
Services
Three things decide how quickly a used packaging machine goes into production: its condition, the change parts that come with it, and getting it to your floor.
Condition
Before a packaging machine ships, we can inspect its drives, controls, product-contact surfaces, and the change parts on hand. We run equipment under power where we can, and buyers often send an OEM representative or join a live video tour. Refurbishment and testing before shipment are available too: we replace wear parts and check that the motors power on.
Parts
PharmParts, our parts division, sells change parts by capsule size for Bosch KKE 1500 and KKE 2000 capsule checkweighers, along with parts for IMA Precisa checkweighers. Each capsule size needs its own set, so a used checkweigher runs only the sizes it has parts for.
Logistics
We arrange skidding, crating, and freight for a single machine or a complete line, including export. Before a line ships abroad, compare each nameplate's voltage and frequency with your plant supply, because a machine built for 60 Hz power may need drive or control changes to run on 50 Hz.
Buying used
A packaging machine rarely works alone. It takes containers from the machine before it, keeps pace with the line, and passes them on, so the questions differ from those for a stand-alone process machine.
Container size, cap size, carton size, and film width are all set by tooling. The format parts that ship with a machine decide what it runs without new tooling, so list your containers and pack sizes before comparing two machines. Any tooling you do not have becomes a separate purchase, so plan for it before you decide.
A line runs at the pace of its slowest machine, and a nameplate speed is a maximum for one format. Check rated speed against your own container, and plan accumulation tables or conveyors to absorb a reel change or a short stop.
Later machines run Allen-Bradley or Siemens PLCs with touchscreen panels, and older ones use relay or simpler controls. Drug lines add serialization, which ties coders, cameras, and checkweighers to site software, so plan integration work when a serialized line changes hands.
Many food lines need washdown construction and food-grade lubricants, and drug lines need product-contact parts that clean well and documentation your quality team accepts. Validation of an installed machine stays with the buyer. Ask what a machine last ran.
A new cartoner or blister machine is usually built to order, with lead times measured in months. Equipment already in our warehouse can ship in days or weeks once inspection and any refurbishment are complete.
Selling surplus
Most of the packaging machinery we buy comes from healthy companies that are closing a site, consolidating products, or replacing a line. We can buy it outright on a fixed date or sell it on consignment, whichever suits the timeline.
Keep change parts, manuals, and conveyors with the machines they belong to, because the next owner needs them to run the line.
Selling starts with an equipment list and photos, including the nameplates and the change parts. Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com.
Sell your surplus machinesBuying instead? Tell us what you are looking for. Our next shows are listed on the trade show schedule.
FAQ
Still have a question? Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com.
Primary equipment fills and closes the package that touches the product, such as a bottle, pouch, blister, or tube. Secondary equipment labels that package and groups it into cartons or bundles. End-of-line equipment erects, packs, and seals the case, stacks cases on a pallet, and stretch wraps the load. Conveyors, coders, checkweighers, and inspection systems tie the three stages together.
Yes. We have handled vertical form-fill-seal baggers with multihead weighers, horizontal flow wrappers, pouch fillers, food-grade coders, case packers, and palletizers, and we have sold packaging equipment at auction from snack food, cereal, bakery, confectionery, and spirits plants. Food machines make up a smaller part of our stock, so tell us the product, the package, and the speed you need.
Yes. Chemical and industrial lines we have handled include pail fillers and lidders, drum filling systems that fill by weight, jerrycan fillers, valve bag packers, open-mouth baggers, and bulk bag fillers. The case packers, palletizers, and stretch wrappers at the end of those lines are the same machines other industries use. Tell us the product and the container, because container weight and the product's hazards narrow the choice of machine.
Refurbished means we have inspected a machine, replaced worn parts as needed, and checked that its motors power on. Used, secondhand, and pre-owned mean the same thing, and a used machine may or may not have been refurbished. Ask us about a machine's condition and any work done on it, and refurbishment and testing can be arranged before shipment. Validation for a regulated product stays with the buyer.
Start with the change parts. Container size, cap size, carton size, and film width are all set by tooling, and the format parts that come with a machine decide what it runs without new tooling. Send your container specifications with your inquiry so your sales contact can check them against the parts on hand. You can inspect the machine in Cleveland, OH, or ask for a live video tour.
Usually, once you check speed, direction of travel, conveyor height and width, and controls. Accumulation tables absorb short stops, but every machine still has to keep pace with the line. Older machines may need a new interface to work with your line's controls, and a serialized drug line needs its software linked as well. Send us the line details with your inquiry.
Yes. We run online auctions when a plant closes or clears surplus, and many of them include packaging equipment, from drug and supplement plants to food, soap, and lubricant plants. Every listing gives the machine's location and preview details, so you can see a line before you bid. To see what is open now, check our auctions page.
Start with a list: each machine with a photo of its nameplate, the change parts that go with it, and the date the site must be clear. Depending on the machines and your deadline, we may buy the line outright, take it on consignment, put it in an auction, or combine the three. We decommission, rig, and remove the equipment, and those costs are recovered from the sale. Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com.
Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com. Inspections in Cleveland, OH by appointment.
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Processing Assets: Blenders, Mixers, Dryers, Mills & Material Handling
November 6 - 12, 2026
Former Assets of a 1,000,000 Sq. Ft. Leading Tire Manufacturer
November 24 - December 3, 2026
A complete, never-commissioned anhydrous ammonia handling system — (4) 120,000-gallon storage bullets, compressor skid, dual-pump skid, and full railcar & truck unloading stations.
Steam Turbine & Heat Recovery System
Well maintained power generation solution available now for redeployment.
Comprehensive Selection of Processing, Inspection, and End-of-Line Equipment
A curated mix of freeze drying, palletizing, weighing, and accumulation systems suitable for biotech, pharma, and general manufacturing.
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