Amcor has introduced an advanced packaging system with built-in venting control for ground coffee and whole beans.
The new Vento is the only coffee pack delivered to roasters with the degassing system already applied, Amcor claimed. It is ready to run on their filling machines and can be packed immediately after roasting with no additional equipment or steps, preserving its fresh flavour and aroma.
Peter Hansen, Amcor R&D and product development engineer for beverages, said: “Vento just makes life so much easier for roasters and offers more flexibility. Having worked with coffee and valves for a few years, I could see roasters faced a lot of issues with coffee packaging systems, and believed there was an opportunity to design a better solution.”
Peter and a team of Amcor developers started work on a concept that became Vento, a high-performance degassing system that is integrated directly into the packaging laminate.
To ensure Vento could deliver on the promise of ease and simplicity, Amcor tested it with six pilot customers, who analysed how well the material ran on their machines and how well it protected their coffee’s freshness using shelf-life tests.
Pilot customers reported reduced downtime and less production waste. Based on data gathered during the pilots, roasters running three shifts on one machine could save on average 280 hours of downtime and up to 10% cost savings annually thanks to increased production efficiency, depending on machine model and the type of hard valve being replaced.
In addition, it is 87% lighter weight than hard valves and allows energy savings by eliminating the need to power an applicator machine. This results in up to 8% decrease in overall carbon footprint for a 250g pack.
And Vento can be integrated on any of Amcor’s typical triplex laminates for coffee soft packs, and adapted to fit customers’ specifications.
“We agreed to participate in the pilot because the idea of eliminating hard valves was very appealing. The process of applying hard valves always created some difficulty in production, so Vento came at just the right time,” said Søren Sylvest, co-owner of Copenhagen Roaster. “The pilot ran smoothly and the performance of the system is impressive; it does the job perfectly. We also loved that it allowed us to move our venting system to the back of the pack.”
Following the pilot scheme, coffee packs using the Vento system are already available in stores around Europe.
“Danish people know coffee,” continued Sylvest. “Denmark is among the top five nations for coffee consumption, so people who buy our products are looking for quality. We are pleased with how well our new Vento packaging preserves the taste and aroma of our coffee.”
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