What is big-bag to silo truck transloading?
Big-bag to silo truck transloading is the transfer of a dry bulk material from flexible intermediate bulk containers (big-bags, FIBC) into a silo truck or silo trailer, so that a plant receives the material loose, by pipe, instead of in bags.
A logistics provider near the port or the plant performs the service: it receives the bags, empties them through a sieve into the silo truck, weighs the material and documents it. The buyer gets one bulk load that its silo accepts without forklifts, bag cutting or packaging waste.
Last updated:
Other names for the same service
Buyers and suppliers call the same thing by different names. All of the terms below mean moving material from packaging into loose bulk:
- bag to bulk, big-bag discharge, debagging
- FIBC to silo truck transloading, bulk transloading, bulk transfer
- big-bag emptying into silo, silo loading from bags
- Slovenian: preklad big bag v cisterno, pretovor razsutega tovora
- Italian: travaso big bag in autosilo, insilamento; German: Big-Bags umfüllen, Silieren (in the logistics sense)
What big-bag transloading is not
- Not farm silage. The Italian “insilamento” and German “Silieren” also mean storing and fermenting fodder on a farm. Bulk transloading has nothing to do with fermentation.
- Not plain silo transport. In silo transport the truck is loaded at the producer’s silo. In transloading the material first arrives in bags and we move it into the silo truck.
- Not bagging. The opposite direction, from a silo or silo truck into big-bags, is a separate service.
- Not container stuffing. Loading pallets or crates into containers is general cargo handling, not bulk transloading.
When you need transloading
Typical cases where transloading into a silo truck pays off:
- Your overseas supplier ships the material in containers full of big-bags, but your plant takes it loose, pneumatically into a silo.
- Your plant has no space, forklift or permit to store pallets of bags.
- Batches must stay separate and documented (weighing ticket, batch record, cleaning certificate for the trailer).
- You want the packaging waste to stay with the transloading provider, not on your site.
- The goods arrive at the Port of Koper and the plant is in Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Croatia or southern Germany, so transloading near the port is the shortest route.
How transloading works
The procedure in a covered hall is always the same, whatever the material:
- Receive. Bags arrive by truck or in a container from the port. Labels, seals, damage and contamination are checked.
- Store. Bags wait on pallets in the dry until a silo truck is ordered.
- Empty and sieve. A forklift lifts the bag over the discharge station. The material falls through a sieve that holds back lumps and packaging residue.
- Load. A conveyor or a pneumatic system moves the material into a clean silo trailer. Batches stay separate.
- Document and dispatch. The load is weighed. The weighing ticket, cleaning certificate and batch record travel with the silo truck to the plant.
Typical numbers
General values from practice. The Capris Trans values are on the home page and are confirmed by the company.
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Big-bag (FIBC) | 500–1,500 kg | most often 1,000 kg |
| Octabin | approx. 500–1,000 kg | octagonal cardboard box on a pallet, common for granules |
| Sack | 25 kg | on pallets of 40–50 sacks |
| Silo truck, payload | approx. 24–27 t | depends on bulk density and trailer volume |
| Big-bags per 25 t truck | 17–50 | depends on bag weight |
| 20 ft container | approx. 20 bags of 1 t | the limit is weight, not space |
| Time per truck at Capris Trans | [X] h | [confirm] |
Which materials are transloaded
Most often plastic granules (PE, PP, PET, PVC, ABS, regranulate), minerals as powder or granulate (lime, talc, calcium carbonate, bentonite), feed and food (sugar, flour, feed raw materials, with the required certificates) and industrial powders. Every material has a different bulk density, flowability and trailer cleaning requirement, so the provider needs the safety data sheet or technical data sheet before transloading.