Commercial vs. Domestic

Do I need to buy a commercial machine or is a domestic one going to be OK? 

This is a question that we are asked every day of the week. The answer depends on three things.

1. Do you need to pack items which are bigger than will fit in a 12 wide bag? If the answer is yes, you should look at commercial machines. Domestic machines can typically fit up to a 12" wide bag and sometimes up to 16" but this is much more expensive.

2. How many packing operation do you expect to do? If you are expecting to do more than 250 packing operation per week then you really need a commercial vacuum packing machine like the Cyclone 30 40 or 50. This has an all steel construction and is designed for heavy prolonged use day-in and day-out.

3. Who is going to be using the vacuum packing machine and where? If the machine is going to be used in a busy commercial kitchen or factory type environment then you really need an all-steel machine. It is not reasonable to expect a machine designed for a domestic kitchen to survive for long in a hostile environment like a commercial kitchen where staff are often under intense time pressure and care of the equipment may not be the top-priority.

In short: if you are doing less than 250 packing operations a week, the machine is going to be looked after and everything you pack will fit into a 12” wide bag then you don’t need a commercial machine. You can choose between the Cylone 30, 40, or 50.

Whether you are using a domestic machine or a commercial one, there is not a great deal of difference between machines in the time that it takes to pack something. Assuming that the item to be packed is reasonably well matched to the vacuum bag size, the operation usually takes about 30 seconds. That is 10-20 seconds to remove the air from the bag and about 10 seconds to make the heat seal.

The commercial machines do work slightly faster but the real difference is in the build quality of the machine chassis – commercial machines have an all steel case whilst the domestic machines have a high-impact plastic case. Also, the commercial machines have an 800 watt motor as opposed to the 400 watt motor found in the domestic machines. This speeds up the packing process a little, but the real difference is in the ability of the commercial machine to work continuously all day every day.