The influx of single-serve packages in the snack and bakery market dovetailing with consumers’ desire for products that fit their lifestyles is no coincidence. Bill Kehrli, vice-president, sales and marketing, Cavanna Packaging, said flowwrapping technology is seeing a major shift to smaller individual serving sizes on primary packaging.
“The goal with this is to reduce waste and control portion sizes,” he explained.
Kelly Meer, product manager at Bosch, agreed, noting that for many consumers, a single-serve option conveys product freshness. The price is also perceived to be more affordable compared with bigger formats.
“Single-serve packaging also adds convenience for busy consumers,” Mr. Meer said.
Additionally, pre-portioned packaging is gaining momentum with other equipment suppliers that provide bagging and closing materials and systems.
“There is a new appearance of wrapped half loaves for small families and single consumers,” said Jimmy Belval, product manager, AMF Bakery Systems.
Formost Fuji recognizes consumer demand for single-serve packaging for a variety of products in the industry, said Angela McDaniel, marketing and sales coordinator.
“With consumer demands driving the need for single-serve and resealable packaging, the Formost bagging machine plays an important role in multi-product bagging,” she said, noting that the Formost GTS Bagger can bag multiple single-serve items into a large bag for retail and warehouse-style distribution.
While smaller sizes are trending, larger formats are not obsolete. Bosch, for example, introduced a machine for larger bag sizes at interpack, recently held in Düsseldorf, Germany. The bagger features a wide format range in both bag and case sizes and is capable of picking and placing up to 180 packages per minute.
Beyond package size, other format changes have emerged that affect bagging and closing capabilities. The ongoing transition from traditional pillow bags to stand-up resealable pouches has led suppliers to focus on new solutions.
To that end, Mr. Meer pointed to Bosch’s stand-up pouches with doy zip functionality for easy opening and closing and the protection of contents. Bosch’s continuous motion vertical form/fill/seal machine allows for faster production of bags per minute in a smaller footprint. The final closers include doy, doy-zip, pillow, gusseted, block-bottom, corner-seal, full-corner seal and three-sided seal bags.
Brandon Woods, director of sales, LeMatic, said shelf life remains another consideration in bags and closures.
“More and more, our customers are asking for recloseable bags, such as the zip-lock style,” Mr. Woods said. “The driving force is longer shelf life.”
Likewise, Mr. Kehrli noted that Cavanna recently developed ultrasonic sealing for flowwrapping, allowing bakeries to use heavier-gauge films and still get a hermetic seal. Although it isn’t evident in the United States yet, Mr. Kehrli said the European trend of flowwrapped sliced loaves with a long top-end seal and twist tie mimics fresh-made bread.
“This is increasing the shelf life of a loaf of bread,” he said.
Another European-inspired application is the use of clip closures for bread and other bakery products. Hartmann offers these types of closures. Patrice Painchaud, vice-president, sales and marketing, said the clip closure offers a variety of benefits and can be a viable option for many U.S. manufacturers.
“It’s low cost and can be used for multiple types of bags, with a tight fit,” Mr. Painchaud said. “It’s also easy to open and close again.”
Additionally, a date or code can be printed on the clip, which can be detected by x-ray systems.
Tamper-proof closures are additional features spurred by both consumers and food manufacturers.
“Tamper proof is a growing demand,” noted Mitch Lindsey, technical sales, Burford Corp. Mr. Lindsey said Burford offers a TCS400 tape closure system that enables consumers to reclose the bag with the option of printing on the closure for traceability; Burford’s tamper evident closure, the TEC200, provides a heat seal for tamper proof and goes with the company’s servo tyer for recloseabilty.
The emergence and growing popularity of specific products such as tortillas has fueled equipment design and functionality. For example, Formost Fuji’s patented tortilla bagger feeds products directly from flighted tabletop conveyors into the bagger where special paddles gently move stacks into the bag.
