Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Caraway Tea Co., a U.S.-based tea and herbal manufacturer, is leveraging affordable automation technologies to modernize its production lines and improve efficiency without the high costs typically associated with large-scale industrial automation, the company explains.

As a small business operating in a highly competitive food manufacturing environment, Caraway Tea Co. has adopted a practical, in-house approach to automation, designing and building custom production solutions using accessible technologies such as microcontrollers and modular components, including systems based on Arduino.

Rather than investing in expensive, proprietary automation systems, Caraway Tea Co. has developed purpose-built machines tailored specifically to tea manufacturing. These include custom tea bag counting conveyors that automatically count and stage tea bags for insertion into retail pouches, reducing manual handling and improving packing consistency. The company also has engineered compact machines designed to portion and pack loose tea into small-format pouches, supporting a variety of product configurations.

“Our goal is to be efficient, adaptable, and competitive without taking on the cost structure of much larger manufacturers,” said Michael Caraway, founder of Caraway Tea Co., in a statement. “By building our own automation solutions, we can improve throughput and consistency while remaining flexible enough to serve customers with specialized or short-run production needs.”

This approach allows Caraway Tea Co. to automate targeted steps within its production process, such as counting, staging, and portioning, while maintaining hands-on oversight of blending and quality control. The result is a hybrid manufacturing model that combines traditional tea expertise with modern production tools.

By adopting scalable, cost-effective technologies, Caraway Tea Co. is able to support private-label and co-packing customers with reliable production while remaining responsive to changing market needs.