The Story Behind AB Technology
AB Technology began the way many of the best industrial solutions do—with a problem no one had solved yet.
At the time, the produce industry was shifting from traditional green berry baskets to plastic clamshell containers. The clamshell design protected fruit better during shipping and allowed containers to stack more efficiently, but it also created a new challenge: applying labels quickly enough to keep up with production.
Manual labeling simply could not keep pace.
That challenge landed on the desk of Ante Baskovic Sr., a trained engineer who was working for a company that manufactured labels. As demand for clamshell packaging grew, the company began looking for a way to automate the process. They turned to Ante Sr. with a simple question:
Could this be automated?
His answer became the foundation of AB Technology.
Engineering the First Labeling Solution
The first challenge wasn’t labeling—it was handling the containers themselves.
Clamshells arrive tightly stacked from thermoforming machines. To automate labeling, the containers first had to be separated, placed onto a conveyor, labeled, and restacked for packing.
Ante Sr. designed a system that could do exactly that. The solution included a denester to separate the containers, a conveyor to move them through the process, label applicators for accurate placement, and an upstacker to prepare the containers for the next stage of packaging.
What started as a solution for a single company quickly proved its value. The system delivered the speed and consistency the growing produce industry needed.
Before long, it became clear that the opportunity extended beyond one customer. That realization by Ante Sr and his son, Ante Jr. led to the creation of AB Technology.
Growing Through Customer Collaboration
From the beginning, the company grew differently than many equipment manufacturers. Rather than designing machines in isolation, improvements came directly from the people running the equipment every day—operators, technicians, and plant managers. If an adjustment was difficult or a process could be simplified, the design evolved.
Over time, this close collaboration helped shape the equipment into highly efficient labeling systems built specifically for high-volume produce packaging. As the systems proved themselves in the field, the company’s customer base expanded largely through word of mouth across the produce packaging industry.
Expanding Beyond Labeling To Padding
As customers became more familiar with the equipment, they began asking if AB Technology could automate additional steps in the packaging process. One of the next major challenges involved placing absorbent pads inside berry containers, used to capture moisture and keep fruit looking fresh. AB Technology developed padding systems to automate that process.
Eventually, customers asked if both steps—labeling and padding—could be done in a single machine. That request led to the development of the company’s combo systems, allowing processors to complete both tasks in one pass rather than running containers through multiple pieces of equipment.
A Reputation Built Over Time
Today, AB Technology equipment operates in large produce packaging facilities across the industry. But the core approach has remained the same as when the first machine was built: listen carefully to customers, solve real production problems, and build equipment that performs reliably day after day.
That commitment—combined with decades of engineering experience—continues to define the company and the solutions it delivers even now as it is a part of the Excelis family of companies.
We would like to talk further if this persistence to precision and innovation with extreme customer care is of interest to you and your production.