Used but not abused

Prepared Foods, April, 1997

"We're seeing a shift in the marketplace from a mostly U.S. market to a global one," says Bob Lehman of Lehman Equipment. "We have foreign companies from emerging countries coming to the U.S. to buy used equipment for their overseas plants more than ever."

Others agree. "We have food manufacturers from Taiwan and other countries coming here looking to purchase complete plants," adds John Cowgill with Custom Food Machinery. "We then ship the entire processing and packaging operations and systems to the companies' home country. Not only do they realize up-front savings of 50%-75% compared to new equipment, but engineering, integration, layout - everything - is already done. This is a tremendous cost avoidance for them."