Contract manufacturer SternMaid has extended its filling capacities for small packs at its plant in Wittenburg, near Hamburg.
The investment in a new pouch line will mean that the company will be able to pack end-products in ready-made stand-up pouches with or without a zipper and three- or four-edge seal bags. Up to 40 bags can be filled every minute with dry beverage bases, superfoods, powdered dietetic drinks or products for athletes.
The packs, with their practical and resealable mechanism, offers customers a combination of a large opening, sparing use of packaging material and wide facing that helps the pouches stand out on retail shelves.
With the new machine, SternMaid can fill ready-made pouches with a width of between 150mm and 340mm, a length of up to 425mm, and a capacity ranging from 100g–3.5kg.
The pouches are taken out of the feed container by a gripper, then opened by a vacuum suction device, coded by an inkjet and filled by means of a screw-fed dosing unit. Following this, a suction hood removes the product dust that may be caused by the air expeller for the seal, which ensures tight closure of the seam. After this tamper-evident safety sealing, the seam, which is still warm, is cooled and the zipper closed.
SternMaid commercial manager Mark Riemer said: “As a provider of co-packing services we are constantly widening our range of retail packs to include new sizes and types of packaging. When planning our filling lines we deliberately decided on a modular system in which each unit can be integrated into any packaging line. That ensures us maximum flexibility, for the compatible individual elements make it possible to change products quickly and safely.”
The Doypack line will move into SternMaid’s new building when it is completed at the end of 2017, with all retail items in SternMaid’s range to be produced in the plant in the future.
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