Advances in coffee packaging equipment - in speed, versatility & cost savings.

Liz Fader continues with the latest in coffee packaging with materials. The first part of the two-part series appeared in the August issue. The article reviewed the historical perspective of packaging equipment and several major packaging equipment and materials manufacturers.

General

The General Packaging Equipment Co. was founded in 1954 to manufacture form/fill/seal machines.

The coffee roasting industry has always been important business to General, about 20-25% of its business is in coffee. General has been supplying equipment to the coffee roasting industry for almost 38 years. A number of the machines the company built in the 50's are still in daily operation and General supplies parts and support for these machines.

"The coffee industry is a very tight knit group," says Robert Kelly, president of General. "We provide a simple, reliable, backed-up product line, and word got around," he said. "We build versatile equipment as far as size and product range. We aim for compact, reliable, highoutput machines. It is high in value to cost or relatively inexpensive. Our machines produce up to 160 packages per minute," he said.

General provides form/fill/seal, vacuum packing and weighing machines. Until the late 1980's, the product line consisted solely of pillow pack form/fill/seal machines and net weight scales. They made a

pillow pack for beans which is still used for some restaurants and other institutions.

Kelly talked about the advent of the brick pack and the involvement of European packing equipment companies in the U.S. market. "About seven years ago, we started developing equipment for the gourmet roasters. At that time most equipment came from Europe, predominantly from Italy, Switzerland and Germany."

"The square bottom gourmet bag is excellent for a retail package in that it stands up, and product information on the front of the bag is easier to read. We developed a vacuum package to go with the square bottom." he said. According to Kelly, although the European companies had this equipment first, General Packaging has led the way in design in the U.S. General's first square bottom bag, valve applicator and vacuum-sealing machines were installed in 1988.

General uses auger fillers for ground coffee, primarily, and whole bean, secondarily. The company also makes net weight scales for applications where whole bean packaging is more important than ground coffee.

Machines can run both ground coffee and beans. Ground coffee is denser than whole bean coffee so that a pound of whole beans needs a large bag. Machines can be changed to run a smaller bag in about 1/2 hour. Machines run bags as follows: fractional packs at 160 bags per minute; square bottom bags at up to 40 bags per minute depending on weight and sealing characteristics of packaging material. For example #5 bags might be run at 12 to 15 bags per minute.

The model #48 for square bottom bags and pillow packs is a computer-controlled machine. Most of General's other machines are based on Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), not as sophisticated as the

Because of the sophistication of some of the newer machines, General has developed service schools for specific models. These two-day training programs are provided at General's plant each year.

Kelly also discussed the situation of older machines. "Pillow machines have been refined. There is a continuous process to update and make equipment easy to operate and maintain," he said. "These older machines have never become obsolete. We continue to supply parts and service for them. It is much less expensive to update these machines than to buy new ones. We design parts so adaptable that in many cases they can be applied by the owner," he said.

According to Kelly, packaging materials play a very important role in the success of a package. The strength and weight of materials determine how fast it will run on the machine and the weight of product it will hold. Nylon has long been used to prevent puncture of materials.

With materials for gas release valves, the sealing layer has to be compatible with valve materials, plus there has to be a high-strength bond between the packaging material and the next layer in the laminant, usually a three or four-ply lamination.

Hayssen Manufacturing, Division of Bemis Corp. (Sheboygan, Wisconsin)

Tom Hammond, senior sales representative for Hayssen, told us that Hayssen builds predominantly vertical form/fill/seal machines. The Ultima is the most well known. It is available in gas flush or nongas flush. The Ultima packages coffee for small and giant urns, brewmakers, filter packs as well as tea bags. According to Hammond, the machines package up to 110 bags per minute. Large bags may be slower. If you are changing from small to large bags, it is necessary to stop for about 20 minutes to change the forming tube.

The machine has solid state controls with memory capability. "We have tried to become simpler and reach higher speed and have done well in that aspect. Our goal is to reduce downtime, increase uptime and efficiency," Hammond said.

Research & Development Packaging Corp. (Lebanon, NJ)

KEY-PAK, the machinery division of R & D Packaging Corp., has been in the packaging business, over 21 years. The company began as a custom engineering and design house and, 10 years ago, developed a standard line of packaging equipment.

The company manufactures a broad range of vertical form/fill/seal machines that package roast and ground, flavored and powdered coffee and coffee beans, throughout the coffee industry.

According to Lawrence Mulligan, sales manager, machines package fractional packs of 1-3 oz. and 1-2 pound pillow packages. They do gas flush but not vacuum packaging or one-way valve machines. KEY-PAK's mid-size machine can make a bag of up to 8 1/2" width by 16" length, suitable for small or giant urn. "For a coffee packager, 90% of product packaged is a 1 to 3 oz. fill and our machines are tooled to do that," Mulligan said. "Additional tooling could be sold with the machine or available later to package bags as large as 8 1/2" X 16". Changing sizes takes about 20 minutes," Mulligan said.

A Durant controller with a key pad entry is used to give operational and timing instructions. The packaging time for a 1 to 1-1/2 oz. fill is one minute for 80 to 100 bags.

A new machine from KEY-PAK is the Bag-in-Bag vertical form/fill/seal machine. It was designed especially for the coffee industry, particularly for use institutionally by airlines, hotels and restaurants. It produces a bag or bags-in-a-bag package. The inner bag sizes can range from 1-1/2" to 4-1/2" width with lengths of up to 8".

Ropak Manufacturing Company, Inc. (Decatur, Alabama)

Ropak has been in the packaging business for 20 years, originally selling equipment to produce sugar packets and, later, salt and pepper pouches. In 1988, Ropak was approached by a coffee company to design its first coffee packaging machine.

Ropak produces what they call a "verti-zontal" type machine. The machine has a simple construction with few moving parts which, according to the company, adds to the machine's reliability and reduces maintenance.

It has a sanitary design so that, if the package overfills, there is a collection plate, preventing product from falling onto moving parts. The focus is to run the product fast, accurately and cost-effectively.

Machinery is PLC-controlled with a touch screen panel. Machines have servo-motor control with an auger filler which makes it accurate and controllable. It can make machine ramp up, slow down before end of cycle, and turn off.

"Materials are getting better all the time," said Brian Klughardt, sales manager of Ropak. The material used is always a critical factor in packaging. Films are being developed to seal at low temperatures with more and better barrier properties to keep products fresher. They are also easier to run on the machines," he said.

Klughardt talked about the importance of materials to good packaging. His feeling is that a great deal is going on in material development. Film can run well within a 25 to 30[degrees] temperature span. There is an ideal temperature within a 10[degrees] span. New machines are sophisticated enough to run at that temperature precision. When film is capable of sealing in the 10[degrees] spread, the machine will give optimum performance. "The speed of the Ropak machine on ground coffee is 700 BPM," Klughardt said.

Raymond Automation (Norwalk, Connecticut)

Raymond Automation has been the U.S. representative for SIG Swiss Industrial Company for 26 years. Raymond was purchased by SIG about four years ago, and now is a division of SIG as well as its sales agent.

The company sells mainly to larger coffee roasters. SIG's RSBV series is a single machine that forms the package, fills the product, and seals the top at speeds of up to 80 bags per minutes. It produces a variety of packaging styles, including the vacuum brick pack. The RSBV features three-dimensional size flexibility and can be equipped with one of several filling systems.

SIG's PSV series is designed to package free-flowing products at speeds of up to 130 packages per minute. It is also a single machine but forms the bag on a mandrel-forming wheel rather than a vertical forming tube. Packages are then filled, closed and discharged to casepacker or bundling operation. The company does not make machines that do small and large urns or filter packs.

All machines are PLC (Programable Logic Controlled). They are sophisticated systems that include interactive programming and are capable of being integrated with other systems. According to sources at Raymond, most companies don't try to integrate computer systems now as they found that the information received wasn't being used.

When asked about trends and changes in the industry, Raymond Automation felt that growth has been in speed, flexibility and accuracy of filling systems. "Twenty years ago, the fastest machines did 60 packages per minute while today they are much faster," they said. "Over the last 25 years, accuracy has improved significantly from + or - 2% to + or -.2% with the new age of electronic check weigh.,

Another change is the elimination of a two-bag package. About 10 years ago, one of the large roasters wanted to have a single bag, for cost reasons. Equipment was developed that would package in a single bag that would be safe and acceptable to consumers. The result was the flat bottom bag.

Raymond Automation described how the development of new materials is an interactive process where machinery people will try out newmaterials to determine their suitability and effectiveness.

Triangle Package Machinery Company (Chicago, Illinois)

Triangle produces the Acceleron form/fill/seal bag machines. The machine can be combined with scales or with auger fillers for the handling of both whole beans as well as ground coffee. The unit, however, packages primarily roasted and ground 1-3 oz. size fractional packages for institutional use. The unit can be equipped for modified atmosphere packaging in either case.

According to William Zuse, director of marketing services for Triangle, the system equipped with an auger filler would have the capability of producing 100 to 110 packages per minute of the small institutional sizes. On ground coffee, one- pound packages could run in the area of 40-45 bags per minute, with slightly higher operating speeds for whole beans. He said that the Acceleron bag machine cannot be equipped at the present time with the relief valve mechanism.

These machines feature a simple but highly technical design. Film advance is by positive direct digital drive that eliminates complexity of gears, universals and brakes, resulting in smooth and stressless film advance. Machines have System 21 computer control that provides automatic setup of all values and functions for all product runs. It monitors and adjusts all interdependent relationships while in production. Changes in package lengths are dialed into the computer.

Zuse says machines can be adapted or customized, but with limitations. The company does not do a degassing valve,but sees it on the agenda for the future.

Liz Fader is a freelance journalist who covers the packaging industry.