Last year I was touring a production facility with seven shrink wrappers. It was a lovely warm March day -about 55 degrees outside. The doors to the facility were open in order to let the cool air in.  As we discussed the product line, speeds and quality, I became increasingly overheated.  The shrink wrappers were making me so hot. Even with the open doors and a slight breeze, it could not dissipate the heat generated by the shrink ovens. I kept trying to imagine the working conditions on a 95 degree day in July in that facility.

Armed with the obvious excessive heat generated by their current wrapping method, I asked if they were looking at energy costs in their calculation of potential savings. They replied that they were not.

Imagine our surprise to get a call from a prospect a few month ago who actually cared about the energy savings. They had done their own calculations of their current energy costs for their shrink wrapper and had concluded that the energy savings alone could justify the cost of switching to overwrapping. Unlike all our other customers who switched from shrink wrap, they were not calculating films costs.

More and more customers are looking at costs holistically. Take a look at this recent article on food companies saving money. Email sales@packagemachinery.com or give us a call at +1.413.732.4000 x110 to discuss ways we can save you money.

Someday soon some one will call us and look at both relative film and energy costs.

cucumbers becoming pickles

I recently visited a commercial kitchen which is part of a Community Development Corporation – a non-profit designed to encourage development in the community or region it serves. In this case the commercial kitchen is designed to help fledgling food businesses get off the ground by providing them business support in developing their food product to scale production, creating a business plan that works and getting necessary certifications. Once approved a fledgling food entrepreneur can rent production space including equipment by the hour, and use dry, refrigerated or freezer storage by the week. This space is also available to local non-profits such as Meals on Wheels, a meal delivery service for the elderly.

If you are thinking about getting started and don’t have a commercial kitchen near you, you could consider using a restaurant kitchen in its off hours.

Here are things to consider courtesy of the Franklin County CDC:

• Business Plan: get your ideas and goals in one document. Define your products, market and competitors. How much money will you need?
• Product Development: small batch testing. then lab analysis leads to scale up and testing and onto packaging and labeling
• Regulations: State licensing is required to sell wholesale and local licensing for retail. Meat and poultry require USDA approval. The FDA cares about products requiring acidification. The Bioterrorism Act requires FDA registration for all domestic food producers. Plus you need liability insurance.

We talked a lot about what kind of packaging works for different products and where the highest returns are in selling food products and how packaging supports that value perception. We also discussed what packaging can the kitchen justify buying as opposed to the brand owner.

As a food entrepreneur, you may be able to use a commercial or restaurant kitchen to create your product, but you may need to purchase your own packaging machinery, if you want to be able differentiate your product.

For more information about becoming a food entrepreneur, visit The Foodpreneur. For information about entry level overwrapping machinery for boxes or bundles look here, and for wrapping individual food items look here.

Unboxing Desire spoke to why consumers want packaging (product purity and safety), their emotional response to packaging (anticipation and wonderment) and their frustration with challenging packaging (heat sealed plastic shell) that defies opening.

Tis the Season to Wrestle with Wasteful, Frustrating Packaging explains the psychology of why item are packaged the way they are while explaining what packaging contributes to landfills. (The EPA says it is one third of landfill content.) The different requirements of packaging by the type of product are explained. While it is easy to discuss over-packaging, the reality is that unlike 100 years ago, often the things we consume come from other continents. Packaging makes it possible to safely transport items long distances and therefore allows for efficiencies of production, while minimizing the waste (due to damage in shipment) of the product itself.

Lastly  I saw a tweet from Whole Foods in praise of eliminating packaging by buying and reusing some of their bags for your holiday present giving. Clearly, some sellers can profit from reduction in single use packaging.

It is clear that people want packaging, not simply for product preservation, but to enhance the experience of opening a package. Yet we need to address the issue of appropriate packaging, so that products are preserved and consumer educated on the one hand, and wasteful packaging is minimized on the other.

As always, I am pleased that the machinery Package Machinery provides minimizes the material used to wrap and permits reduction in other primary packaging (trays rather than boxes or cardboard elimination in some cases).

To learn more abut our efforts to help customers reduce their primary packaging, look here.

Our role is to provide advice on packaging and to give readers the opportunity to think about their packaging. Our latest post focuses on package design and provides guidelines for strategically thinking about your packaging before you commit.

The FoodPreneur creates successful new product launches for food entrepreneurs and all aspects of getting out of the kitchen, getting on the shelf and getting on the consumers plate. At Package Machinery, we are pleased to support Dom and his readers.

We hope that our machinery offerings will serve food entrepreneurs as well as his advice does. Check them out.

If you are switching from another wrapping process, look at the following variable costs:

• material costs: overwrapping uses 20% less film than shrink wrap  and from 12-50% less film than flow wrappers, based on product comparison measurement
• energy: while flow wrappers and overwrappers use 30 amp service, shrink wrappers require 60 amp service and draw a lot of heat to use in the shrink tunnel. This can also increase climate control costs.

If you are switching from an older overwrapper, assess the following costs:

• downtime: how much time and labor is going into keeping your machine running. Is this affecting the entire line? What staffing levels are needed for servicing older machines?
• changeover: do you run different SKUs on the same machine? If so, how long does it take to switch over? This clearly impacts downtime.
• speed: is your overwrapper the pacing item? Could your product run faster?
• Mechanical vs  servo: mechanical machines tend to be less expensive to purchase, but often have higher labor costs, since there is more to adjust and replace. Servo overwrappers use 65% fewer moving parts, so your operating cost is less and your downtime reduced. More changeover can be done in the controls and less by mechanically changing the machine.

If you are new to wrapping:

• current material costs of current packaging
• weight of current packaging vs. film
• impact on size and bulk of intermediate packaging
• shipping cost reduction

For more information, look here. Call us at 413.732.4000  or email sales@packagemachinery.com for help  in calculating our potential savings.

In light of the trade off between packaging and product waste, a few weeks ago I posted a question about what constitutes a sustainable wrapping material on a LinkedIn group, The Packaging Technology Forum. My question elaborated on sourcing of material and questioned both carbon creation and water use in creating material.

Responses ranged from condescending to thoughtful, but most seemed to feel that no material on the market today is truly sustainable, even if it is bio-sourced. Several worthwhile answers included

• Environmental value also must deal with what it replaces, and balance the various factors: energy, effect on air and water, disposal, carbon gain/loss (a future issues) etc. Allan Griff
• What looks good to customers isn’t necessarily the best, or even the right thing to do. You need to look carefully at where materials come from, what their effect is on product (protection and shelf life), and what really happens to them at the end of use, not just what you would like to happen. Iain Ferguson
• Use a material that can be recycled and then look for another material which is better. Use something that has a claim to be sustainable rather than discuss the issue and take no step towards sustainability. Actions make material sustainable, not talk. Ian W Cooper
• Printed films and material using inks and adhesives that are made by chemical substances, not easily to replace with bio-solutions…. Be serious and realistic…. There are hybrid solutions but the market doesn’t like to pay its costs. Giulio Ghisolfi
• The real problem in North America is consumer education and commitment. Michael Finnegan

The conclusion is that there is no miracle wrapping material yet, but there are intermediate ones if one is willing to pay for it. Consumer education remains an open issue, since without consumer engagement, contamination of the waste stream is a potential problem.

in the meantime, see my discussion of what Package can do to help with reducing your wrapping resource consumption.

FA-ST overwrapper

We have been building servo driven overwrappers for over ten years now – longer than anyone else. That translates to greater experience with using servos to control overwrappers. In fact, we are on our third generation of software controlling those servos and we support two different platforms for our customers’ choice. Of course, the history of Package overwrappers goes back to the 1930′s. Some overwrappers from that decade are still running today.

Usually we talk or write about how servos reduce the number of moving parts and that makes for more economical after-market service since there are fewer parts to replace or get out of alignment.

That overlooks an important aspect of servo control however. Servo control permits- in fact requires- adjustment on the fly, so that the machine does not get out of alignment. This is most obvious when it comes to printed film, since the machine is making sure it hits the registration mark with every cut of the film.  The constant feedback loop that servos offer mean that this is going on  while the machine is in operation. This eliminates the manual adjustment that mechanical machines require.

Servo controls permit recipe storage so that the machine can reset cut length and film positioning over the product depending on which recipe you choose. Using sensors, the machine will speed up or slow down to match the speed of product coming into the machine.

Package Machinery’s servo overwrappers are a world apart from other overwrappers for other reasons too. Ours can offer both quick change and speed- up to 150 packages per minute. They can wrap trays, boxes or bundles – all on the same machine.

Add to this

• background editing that lets operators create, modify or copy wrap recipes while in production
• digital heat read outs and feedback loop, so the temperature for sealing is constantly self-correcting
• rugged machine construction for long term use
• Category 3 safety interlocks and guarding that meets international safety standards
• broad range of wrapping material options including bio-sourced films and waxed paper

When it comes to flexibility, economical operation and respect for your operating costs, there is no better choice than the FA-ST servo overwrapper. Check out this video. Then call us at +1.413.732.4000 or email sales@packagemachinery.com for more information.

Why not worry about some other piece of equipment instead of your overwrapper?

“It argues global challenges such as climate change, scarcity of key resources, and rapid population growth ‘make it essential for us to reorient our global economy around sustainable, low-carbon patterns of consumption’.”

The long term cost of unsustainable practices outweighs the cost of consumer ignorance and points out the need to reposition products in anticipation of changing consumer values.

” ‘Smart brands and businesses will make money today by accelerating the transition to a sustainable future,’ said Dr Sally Uren, deputy chief executive of Forum for the Future, which produced the report in conjunction with Sainsbury’s and Unilever.”

At Package Machinery, we get many requests for advice on appropriate films to use with our overwrapping machines. The problem today is that many films are not yet at the point where we can wholeheartedly recommend any one film as the one that is carbon neutral, resource sustainable, clean water respectful and comparably priced to other films currently on the market.

At the risk of suggesting that our customers might want to spend more, picking a more sustainable film offers the chance to to be ahead of the market with some assurance that the consumer will be there with you in short order.

In the interim, here is one way of looking at the cost of various wrapping methods and what options to consider.

Says Sainsbury’s  chief  executive Justin King, ” ‘Being a sustainable company is not about box ticking, it’s about future-proofing your business and building trust and brand loyalty that will last for years to come.’ “

Today it was about patient satisfaction, in my role as a trustee of a hospital. Satisfaction is about meeting or exceeding expectations. Patients have expectations about what will be done to them, what outcome the healthcare will provide, how they will be treated. Most times the practitioner is expected to make expert judgements. Clear expectations on both sides are called for, especially since the patient has to have a role in his/her own health and recovery. Yet many health care delivery organizations treat the patient like a cherished object. The patient can feel helpless and take no role in assisting him or herself to a better and healthier life. Together the health care deliverers and the patient can work together for the best outcome for that patient.

How does healthcare apply to selling and building a custom wrapping machine? When we sell an overwrapper, we are experts on our machine, its features, its software controls, its speed.  What we need to learn more about is the setting the machine is going into: the people who will take care of it, the type of product that will be run on it and the material that will be used to wrap the product. Sometimes even the climate control plays a role in the outcomes. We also need to engage the buyer in the decision-making about all of those factors they can control.

When do we fail?  We fail when we assume. We fail when we do not engage the buyer in the decision-making and they assume.

When do we have best outcomes? We succeed when we engage the buyer so that they are part of the decsion-making and setting of expectations, when they have expectations of their own to meet and we are helping them to that goal.

Read about what you should expect when buying a servo wrapper from Package Machinery.

At Pack Expo Las Vegas September 26-28, Package Machinery will showcase its semi-automatic machines: the TTDF, table top diefold wrapper and the Wrapster overwrapper. We will also be discussing our newest additions to our high speed servo wrapping machine line up.

TTDF diefold wrap style

Both semi-automati wrapping machines are productivity enhancers over hand wrapping. More importantly, they standardize the consistency of product wrap and appearance.  All too often, customers stay with hand wrapping while they lose time and efficiency and have inconsistent wraps from one employee to another.

Overwrap fold style

Our first Wrapster customer, a contract packager was able to triple their business with their customer because of their ability to provide a steady volume of consistent wraps.

Our first TTDF customer  was able to stop wrapping by hand and focus on growing the product line while enabling a lower cost employee to wrap products, consistently and attractively.

Package staff will also be available to discuss our larger machines for which we are best known: the FA-ST high speed servo overwrapper and our new inline servo bundler/wrapper.

Sustainability
To understand how we can help you be more efficient in wrapping, see this video.

Recent projects have included bundles of tissue packs, trays of snacks, bundles of OTC pharma products, caramels, brownies, fruitcakes, confectionery, and personal care products. Let us know about your project and how we could help you.

Contact us at customerservice@packagemachinery.com if you need a free invitation for Pack Expo.

Please visit us at Booth 1308 on the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.