More than ever before, our supermarket shelves are a battleground for an enormous array of packaged fresh food products, each competing for the attention of time-strapped, price-sensitive consumers. Particularly in comparison to frozen alternatives, fresh food products such as vegetables, salad and dairy products appeal to modern, health-conscious, environmentally aware shoppers.Ultrasonic_salad

But today’s selective consumers do not just want their food to be fresh—they want it to be fresh for longer, with greater usability. This places complex requirements on both food manufacturers and packagers, and presents an array of challenges.

Eric Aasen, VFFS Product Line Manager, dives into the requirements and challenges of packaging fresh food products in an article published today on Packaging Digest.  The article focuses on fresh produce packaging using vertical form fill seal machines but many of the insights shared in the article can be applied to all types of packaging machines.  Read the entire article here.

http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/523031-A_fresh_perspective_on_flexible_packaging_equipment.php

Gary Anderton, General Manager – Bosch Packaging Services, talks about what we’re looking forward to in 2013.

shopping cartBosch Packaging Technology, Inc. now offers its best selling line of Doboy table top hand sealers for purchase online.  The online store provides customers a fast, convenient way to purchase either the HS-BII or HS-CII tabletop sealers.   The HS-CII is a portable continuous band sealer that seals most soft films, such as polyethylenes.  The HS-BII is a portable rotary sealer intended for heat sealing hard or supported films such as cellophane, polypropylene, foils, or paper laminates. Both sealers are simple to operate with temperature and pressure settings easily adjusted to accommodate different different bag styles and thicknesses.

In addition to the sealers, spare parts kits and an optional table top mounting stand is available for purchase in the online store.

For more information on the Doboy tabletop sealers watch the video below or visit the Bosch website.

Partnership with Bosch Accelerates ProductionEndangered Species Chocolate Squares

Endangered Species™ Chocolate expects more than a 230 percent boost in output by using Bosch’s Pack 401 horizontal flow wrapper, enabling it to meet increasing demand for its chocolate bars. As evidenced by its name, the premium chocolate company donates 10 percent of its net profits to species and habitat conservation efforts.

The company has been using Bosch machines since opening in 1993. As more and more consumers were craving its 0.35-ounce Organic Chocolate Squares, known as Chimp Mints and Bug Bites, Endangered Species needed to increase production capacity. The Pack 401 enabled production to jump from 120 pieces per minute to 400 pieces per minute.

“The Pack 401 wraps our products faster than we can currently produce them,” said Bryan Fuller, Director of Operations, Endangered Species. “This positions us for our anticipated growth over the next few years.”

Previously, defective packaging had to be manually sorted and discarded.  The Pack 401 features sensors that automatically detect and reject inadequate products and packaging, such as empty packages, uncut packages, or packages with film splices, which increases efficiency and saves on labor costs.

“Our conservation mission is the core of our organization and we fully trust that Bosch’s technology will produce results,” Fuller added. “Higher profits and reduced waste mean more donations to our not-for-profit partners.”

As the company experienced tremendous growth in production, it needed a machine with simplified cleaning and maintenance to ensure product safety and remove all traces of allergy-causing ingredients. “The Pack 401 is an expertly planned machine – every section is easy to access and clean,” said Fuller.

“We always enjoy helping our customers reach their production goals and it’s even sweeter when this also benefits important causes,” said Paul Garms, Marketing Manager, Bosch Packaging Technology.

Endangered Species’ previous solution required that the chocolate squares be manually transferred from their molds to the primary packaging machine. The Pack 401 automatically directs the chocolates from the mold line to the flow wrapper without human intervention, allowing the company to redirect labor to higher skilled positions.

In honor of Thanksgiving we would like to thank all of our customers for their support in our fifth annual Customer Satisfaction Survey. Distributed every year in October, we donate 10 Euros to UNICEF for every completed response received. This year we had an overall 13% global response rate and because of that support were able to donate approximately $3000 to UNICEF’s Safe Water Saves Lives program.

To find out more about the Safe Water – Saves Lives program visit the Unicef website.

Although the Customer Satisfaction Survey is our primary way of gathering feedback from our customers please feel free to use this blog as a forum to provide us with your feedback year round by simply completing the Contact Form or commenting below.

We invite you to walk through our Pack Expo 2012 booth in a new 3D interactive website (www.BoschPackagingBooth.com). Our new “Virtual Booth” technology makes it feel like you are right on the show floor with 3D machine views, video from the show, and the ability to download brochures and contact Bosch.

See what you missed at our booth, or share with your colleagues the exciting new machines you saw.  The virtual booth includes 17 different displays that you can interact with.  Navigating the booth is easy.  Simply click on the left or right arrows to move around the booth and then select the machine or kiosk that is of interest to you.  It’s a great way to explore new packaging technology without leaving your office!

Select a machine or kiosk to see a close-up view like this with descriptive text. Buttons on the bottom of the screen allow you to watch a video, go to the product page on the Bosch website, request a quote, contact Bosch, or request a brochure.

Well-trained and motivated employees are the key to your success. Our comprehensive training concept is tailored to the individual needs of your team. Especially when working with complex packaging lines, it is essential that your staff is familiar with the different machine components and is able to make optimum use of them. We therefore closely coordinate our modular training concept with you and the engineers of our plants and offer you customized seminars, instructions and expert training courses.

With our one on one on-the-job (OTJ) training our trainers accompany your team during production runs and offer their professional advice on maintenance and changeover operations.

Our classroom training is a modular group course that can be held at your premises or at our in-house training center.* It is targeted for your company and the group that you need trained.

Computer based training (CBT)* is a multimedia training module specifically adapted for the respective target audience and the existing equipment. CBT is independent, individual and interactive. It is the ideal tool to refresh and deepen your knowledge and to maintain optimum line efficiency.

For more information on our training options contact us.

*Classroom training and CBT options only available for certain machines, please discuss with your sales representative or customer contact if this option is available for your machine. 

Our OEE Projects typically start with an OEE intro. With the intro we perform a line check up to analyze the machine status and then, together with you, define the next steps. Depending on the availability of a measuring system and available data we can start an OEE Audit. Alternatively, we also offer a Technical Audit on line efficiency for manually based tools.

In both cases, we complete this step with a report on the overall line efficiency. Based on the analysis we can either start a technical solution, which is an implementation of a measuring system to obtain daily machine data, or an OEE Improvement Project.

The OEE Improvement Project enables us to develop specific solutions for you by combining our joint expertise and competencies. We assess the machine’s performance potential to reach your defined target using tailor-made solutions. A cost-benefit analysis lies at the center of this operation.

For more information on OEE Consulting check out our FAQs Page or  contact us.

A new option for dry pet food manufacturers and pet treat operations looking to automate their packaging and reduce costs is the Bosch SVI series VFFS (vertical form fill seal) baggers.  The Bosch SVI series VFFS baggers have the potential to reduce material costs by up to 40% verse pre-made bags.

New VFFS machines, like the Bosch SVI, are now able to make a wide range of bag styles and can even incorporate popular reclose features that traditionally were only available in pre-made bags.   Reclose features have gained popularity, and are widely used in the pet treat market on doy style bags.  Horizontal pouch machines, another alternative to pre-made bags, can produce high quality doy style pouches as well.  However, they are significantly more expensive than VFFS machines and have a much larger footprint.

As a provider of both bag closers and VFFS machines, Bosch can help pet food operations decide which machine will help them best meet their packaging goals.  For many operations, pre-made bags continue to be the best solution; especially where large package sizes and high speeds are needed.  However, with the potential to reduce material costs by up to 40% over pre-made bags,  vertical form fill seal baggers should be considered for those operations where they fit the requirements.  For more information on the Bosch SVI and pet food packaging visit www.boschpackaging.com/nrd/petfood.

With our online ordering platform not only can you get spare parts information and ordering capabilities around the clock but we also offer an Open Catalog Interface (OCI) and a Corporate Portal.

Using the OCI, product information may be transferred to your internal purchasing catalog or ERP system. This allows you to order parts via your company’s internal system while still being able to use the E-Portal information.

In the Corporate Portal, several location-specific E-Portals may be combined. This combination can be a big benefit for a corporation, or a purchasing organization. It enables an E-Portal user to manage the ordering process for several locations and still have access to the relevant information on all the spare parts.

For more information on the Bosch Packaging Services’ E-Portal contact your sales or customer service representative or visit the E-Portal site.

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