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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.
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.
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.
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.
Solar powered IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) vegetable processing and packaging facility in the USA relies on efficient Bosch VFFS baggers to meet its quick changeover times and reliability demands.
Seabrook Brothers & Sons is a third generation family owned and operated business that processes and packages 150 million pounds of frozen vegetables per year. Located in the “Garden State” of southern New Jersey, they are ideally positioned to quickly supply the major metropolitan areas along the east coast of the U.S. with a wide range of frozen vegetables.
As a co-packer, the demands on their operation are diverse, with over 1,800 SKUs produced in their Seabrook, NJ facility. Seabrook runs two 10 hour shifts per day, six days a week and on average has 3 to 4 changeovers on each line per shift. That’s up to 288 changeovers per week across Seabrook’s 6 packaging lines. These changeovers affect their Vertical Form-Fill-Seal operations dramatically. It was the need for rapid changeovers, ability to handle a multitude of films with no tweaking or loss in speed, and basic reliable operation that lead Seabrook to purchase a Bosch SVE 2510 continuous motion bagger after trying two other VFFS bagger brands.
As William “Wes” Seabrook , Vice President Engineering, at Seabrook explained “Every machine you can make work if you have time to tinker with it. We don’t have time here. We need to set it up for the next product and run.” Just like their customers, Seabrook doesn’t carry a lot of stock, so if they are to meet their customer’s demands they need to package and ship without interruption and the Bosch machines give Wes the quick changeover and reliability he needs. “After we tried the first Bosch bagger we loved it,” notes Wes, “The ease of operation and reliability of the Bosch bagger lets us meet our customer’s demands.”
Seabrook Farms uses state-of-the-art equipment throughout their facility. The bagging lines primarily uses Gough Econ bucket elevators to feed Yamato scales above the Bosch baggers. Safeline metal detectors and check weighers on the take-away conveyor round out the bagging lines. Wes specifies this equipment to Bosch and then Bosch executes and integrates the entire line, including the scale platforms, for Seabrook. “This is a big help for us” notes Wes, “We don’t have to worry about the drop heights from the scales to the baggers, or anything else about the line integration. We know when we get it all from Bosch it will be optimized and running together smoothly.”
Operating a state-of-the-art facility isn’t restricted to Seabrook’s packaging lines. Their approach to powering their facility is also state-of-the-art. IQF processing is an energy intensive operation, so Seabrook looked for new, environmentally friendly technologies to help with their energy needs. It started with purchasing generators so they could participate in peak shaving, synchronized reserve, and demand response programs with their local utility. Then they took their energy program to the next level and installed 21 acres of solar panels next to their processing facility in Seabrook, NJ. The solar farm generates about a third of Seabrook’s total electricity requirements and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 6, 989 tones per year.
The confectionery industry places a premium on package style and appearance. Often an impulse purchase, confectionery products must stand out on the shelf to grab customers’ attention. As a result, confectionery manufacturers need to be able to quickly react to new packaging trends and styles. Bosch helps confectionery companies react quickly by providing flexible machines that can be easily reconfigured to run different bag styles. An excerpt below from PMT’s March/April 2012 article titled “Candy Everybody Wants” explains more about what Bosch is doing in this area. Click on the previous link to read the entire article for more information.
At Bosch, Jansen has seen an increase in the need for package style flexibility and configurations, with an emphasis on shelf-ready displays. “Confectionery customers are being driven by retailers to meet various shelf-ready requirements and are partnering with Bosch to create flexible lines that can address multiple retailers’ demands across their various product lines,” he says. “As an example, we have installed numerous packaging lines in the confectionery industry that combine one of our V/F/F/S baggers with a delta robot for secondary packaging. The Bosch V/F/F/S bagger has the flexibility to package confectionery customers’ products in everything from standard pillow bags to four corner sealed bags and doy bags. These various package styles can then be picked up and placed by a Bosch delta robot into a wide range of secondary packaging configurations, including shelf-ready displays that many retailers are requiring.” Jansen also notes that Bosch has received many requests for technologies to top load vertically-produced bags in cases or cartons, and that Bosch is working to meet the demand from consumers for more packagage style flexibility.
In recent years, Bosch Packaging sealing systems have had many great improvements. If you are still running your original set of seal jaws contact your Bosch sales representative or customer service representative for information on the new technologies we can now offer. From the latest in poly weld sealing systems to heat seal laminate, Bosch can offer the newest technologies to improve the efficiency of your machine, meaning less product rework and greater case counts with every run.
We strive to not only increase the efficiency of your machine but to also support your overall business. Because many of you are looking for ways to cut cost and implement better inventory control systems we have developed our newer sealing systems to be stretched across different Bosch machine generations. The common seal jaw parts allow you to stock fewer spares and better transfer technical knowledge across bagging lines within your own organization and with less confusion.
So whether you are looking to double the poly seal weld on your continuous motion Bosch bagger or need our vertical serrated seal jaw for your brown heat seal paper, Bosch Packaging Services will work with you to find the best solution.
Be prepared for this, and other potential issues with your packaging machine with Bosch Packaging Services Preventive Maintenance kits. We have compiled kits with OEM parts and recommended replacement intervals to take the guesswork out of preventive maintenance and eliminate time consuming ordering of individual small parts.* Save not only on shipping costs but also 5% off the price of the individual parts when ordered as a complete kit.
Download the Brochures:
For more information on our preventive maintenance offerings, including Preventive Maintenance Service Agreements, or to be entered into our monthly drawing for Bosch power tool, Contact Us.
*currently only budgetary pricing is available. For specific pricing for your machines contact your Bosch Packaging Services customer representative with machine serial number and allow for at least a two week lead time.
The drive system on the SVK 3600 machines is comprised of a Variable Frequency Drive controlled AC motor that drives both the vertical drive arm for the up and down movement of the cross jaw housing, as well as drives the hydraulic assembly that provides hydraulic pressure for the closing of the cross seal jaws.
With the continuing developments made in the field of servo technology we are now able to offer you a conversion kit that will eliminate the original drive components and substitute them with servo systems thus eliminating the need for hydraulics while at the same time reducing the extent of maintenance repairs.
As part of this conversion we will remove the old drive system and equip your machine with complete new vertical drive assembly as well as a complete new cross jaw housing assembly.
Installing this conversion on your machine will extend the life expectancy while reducing your downtime due to maintenance and repairs.
While considering this conversion you might also want to consider converting your belt transport system to servo,
implementing a Category 3 safety circuit upgrade with double redundancy, and replacing the standard Leybold vacuum
pump with an oilless model for maximum safety and efficiency.
Take a look at the video below to see the new motor in action.
For price and availability see the contact information below or fill in our contact form.
For US Customers contact:
Robert Smeets
Telephone: (219) 369 – 4962
Fax: (847) 463 – 8587
Robert.Smeets@boschpackagingservices.com
For Canadian Customers contact:
Mark Moulton
Telephone: (613) 802 – 8746
Fax: (919) 501 – 2911
Mark.Moulton@boschpackagingservices.com
