Raising the bar for packaging

WORLDWIDE, there is greater interest in the food and beverage industry to shrink their carbon footprint. Manufacturers, responding to strong consumer activism, are insisting on sustainable packages produced with minimum resource input but without compromising on strength. Companies are also resorting to highly automated conveying technologies to ensure trouble-free materials flow.

This raises the bar significantly for packaging. “Like other packages, industrial packages also have to protect the product while using less material. Less material also means less space taken up by the packaged product,” explains Vera Fritsche, specialist of the Food Processing and Packaging Machinery Association in the German Engineering Federation (VDMA).

In addition, the containers have to become identifiable so that they can be controlled by different logistics systems. In-mould labelling (IML) technology is making rapid inroads, as it produces durable and easy-toclean labels, although it is more elaborate and more expensive than the currently widespread barcodes that are simply stuck onto the packages in a downstream cycle.

IML is integrated in container production with pre-printed labels inserted in the injection mould and fuse with the plastic melt on its injection into the mould. “Coding plays a very important part here, particularly as regards the traceability of the product over the entire distribution chain as well as the entire in-plant logistics,” comments Ms Fritsche.

Manufacturers are also passing on the pressure to the packaging industry in the form of demands for volume-reduced containers, be they folding, conical or stackable/nesting. “Freight and storage space is becoming not only scarcer, but also costlier,” she says.

At interpack 2014 in Düsseldorf, packaging suppliers are to deliver packaging technologies and materials without loss of quality and at as little extra cost as possible.

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High output hygienic packaging system

DAIRY or baby food producers aiming to increase output need to take a look at Bosch’s new TFC 5532 for extended shelf life (ESL) products such as yoghurts, desserts and fresh products. The machine’s extended 4x6 cup configuration enables a high output of up to 43,200 cups per hour and handling of various cup sizes ranging from portion packs up to dessert cups. The thermoforming line is available for clean and ultra-clean hygienic packaging, and can also handle hot-fill applications and products with particulates of up to 25mm in diameter. The patentNike Zoom Assersion EP