When switching products on bar processing lines, bakers want equipment that can keep changeovers as quick and painless as possible.

“When handling different sizes or textures of bars, equipment must be flexible and easy to adjust to maintain operational efficiency,” said Brad Baker, senior sales director, Americas, Syntegon. “It is often the case that it’s the wrapper infeed that brings the flexibility in bar sizes, shapes or surface tackiness.”

He added that Syntegon’s horizontal flow wrappers can be equipped with an electro-magnetic infeed and “intelligent” lugs keeping bars from touching regardless of inconsistent product gaps or format changes. 

“This adaptability ensures manufacturers can run diverse product lines efficiently, meeting the needs of a competitive and ever-changing market,” Baker said.

Most packaging machines have adjustable forming boxes, guides and sealing jaws, which must be calibrated for different bar lengths, widths and thicknesses, said Yasha Shamayeli, director marketing strategy, Plan It Packaging.

“Sealing temperature and pressure may vary based on packaging material and product texture,” he added. “A crunchy bar might tolerate a firmer seal, while a chewy bar could be more heat-sensitive.”

Shamayeli said existing lines can often be retrofitted for new uses.

“In many cases, older machines can be upgraded with new tooling or servo-driven components for better flexibility, rather than replacing the entire machine,” he pointed out.

Changing equipment speeds when making hard crunchy baked bars can be difficult because they create more crumbs, which can exacerbate handling issues.

“This style of bars can be handled robotically unless quite fragile, or via more traditional feeders widely used in the cookie industry,” said Liam Buckley, IMA Ilapak sales director, North America. “Chewy bars tend to handle well on hard automation as their adhesion to a belt is more predictable, and they handle speed changes easier. Cold-formed bars handle well on hard automation and can also be handled on robotics. Dimensional changes requiring film web width changes typically require forming box changes or infeed setup adjustments.”

High-speed machines frequently necessitate the use of additional forming boxes to accommodate variations in product width and height, said Mark Lozano, vice president North American operations, SACMI Packaging and Chocolate USA.

“Moreover, differences in product length might require adjustments to, or even replacement of, the feed chain, depending on the length of the product and the pitch of the chain,” he said.

Equipment adjustments needed for changeovers depend on how much the product size changes. While a slight change in length might require a film and recipe change, a change in width will require adjustments to guide rails on primary packaging line infeed and possible lug chain pitch changes as well as to the film folding box, said Josh Becker, bakery and confection segment manager, Harpak-Ulma.

“If you have different types of bars — like crunchy or chewy — you will want to ensure any product contact belts or guides the bars will contact in the packaging process do not cause damage to the product,” he said. 

Bakers looking to maximize equipment by running a variety of products must look at the capabilities of each piece of equipment. 

“Setting up a packaging line to run a large variety of products is great but sometimes is not the most efficient,” Becker explained. “You’ll have a lot of products that you can package, but the equipment may not be maximized for any one product. If you are manually loading a packaging machine, you would have more opportunity to maximize the variety of products packaged.” 

Machines built using a modular construction system like Schubert’s can be adapted to new challenges, ,” said Luc Jamet, project manager, Schubert North America. 

“Thanks to modularity, sub-machines can be exchanged to perform new tasks,” he said. “However, even without modifications, an existing machine can often be adapted to a wide variety of products simply by replacing format parts.”

When it comes to secondary bar packaging, Jamet said pick-and-place robotics are effective and efficient.

“In this process, flow wrapped bars are precisely picked up with suction tools and placed into boxes with millimeter accuracy,” he said. “The precise picking, combined with adapted material quality of the suction tools when necessary, ensures maximum flexibility.”

Equipment on bar lines should be able to handle multiple products, said Mike Alexander, sales manager for the Eastern United States and Canada, Formost Fuji. 

“They’re designed to be flexible,” he explained. “Very rarely do you have something dedicated to one thing. So the potential is there to change it.”

Bar makers are interested in equipment that can accommodate a range of sizes, which equipment can readily handle.

“We’re seeing an interest in minis, like half-size, low-calorie count,” said Bill Kehrli, vice president sales and marketing, Cavanna Packaging. “That increases your speed dramatically. But speed is not always a problem with packaging. If you look at a sticky bar, it’s usually 100 mm long and minis are 50 mm. The way they get processed, it can become a problem with speed but not necessarily.”

This article is an excerpt from the March 2025 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Bar Packaging, click here.