Changes in packaging are imperative

Canada’s Clougherty Packing Company is known for packaging four types of Farmer John-branded meat products in new ways, including sliced ​​fresh meat, pork sausages using natural casings, pork sausages using collagen casings and pork sausage patty .

The sausages used to package pork patties and collagen casings were packaged in cardboard boxes, and the top was made of transparent cellophane. This type of packaging has now been eliminated. Equally obsolete is the rear inflatable wrap-foam tray packaging used for sliced ​​pork and natural sausage wrapped pork sausages. The new four-piece pork product packaging uses a rear inflatable plastic air-conditioned tray, and uses a heat-sealing method to seal the barrier film on the top of the tray.

According to Sandy Schulman, the market leader, there are many decisive factors in using the new packaging format. Schulman said: "We don't like form-based packaging because over time, there is water vapor on the form. Finally, even if the company's products do not need to be shipped east of the Rocky Mountains, our thinly sliced Meat products still require a shelf life of up to 11 days."

It should be noted that Clougherty Packing's packaging requirements are very special for meat product packaging. Usually many companies use frozen methods to extend the effective shelf life of their products during the distribution process. However, this does not work for Farmer John brand frozen meat products because frozen meat products can destroy the taste and taste of the product. Therefore, the Farmer John brand meat products are refrigerated rather than frozen, while the use of modified atmosphere packaging technology and barrier materials can well meet the company's requirements.

The company acknowledges that the new materials used today are much more expensive than the materials used previously. However, due to the reduction of manual investment through automation and increase of market share, some additional costs were offset. Bob Delmore, deputy manager of the Technical Services Department, said: "We strongly hope that we can make our packaging more modern and we will be able to extend our product warranty. This is worthwhile."

New packaging effectively extends shelf life

Clougherty Packing's revenue is indeed considerable. With the new packaging, the shelf life of sliced ​​pork increased from 11 days to 14 days, and the shelf life of sausages and patties increased from 16 days to 20 days. Schulman said: "We do get great, especially now that we are very reassuring about the quality of the product. When the product is displayed on the shelf for 20 days, the quality is still the same as it was on the first day."

Clougherty Packing's new production line was designed to operate two different products in four products at the same time. The four products include sliced ​​fresh meat, pork sausages using natural casings, and collagen casings. Pork sausage and pork sausage patty. The former uses Ross' air conditioning system. Sliced ​​pork is stored in an automatic dispenser and then automatically placed in a white tray. Patties and sausages are manually placed in trays. All four products, two at a time, can be placed on the same conveyor at the same time and sent to the Ross device. The tray feeding section of the apparatus has a tray divider, which feeds the tray to a container with four crossings where the excess volume is discharged and transferred to the capping apparatus.

The device can operate trays with different depths in the range of 1.125cm to 1.5cm, but the plane size of the tray is the same. Therefore, regardless of which two products can be packaged arbitrarily at a time, the partial discharge of the excess volume, the rear filling, and the capping are all done on one console. A knife at the next station can be used to cut excess lidding film material along the edge of the tray. Then, the tray is erected, and the packaged trays are automatically packaged one by one.

Delmore thinks: "This is an entirely aerobic package. 80% of oxygen is used to keep the color of the meat bright red, and 20% of the carbon dioxide prevents the growth of bacteria."

Joint work process with casing equipment

An operator was placed in the rear section of the capping machine, removed the capped tray, and placed it on one of the two conveyor belts, both of which were Adco's 12WA-100 wraps. On the standard device. Sliced ​​pork is delivered to one of the sleeve labeling devices and the patties are transferred to another sleeve labeling device. Due to supermarket chain requirements, meat products destined for supermarket chains need to be pre-printed with price tags, so each sliced ​​pork on the trays is transferred to the New Brunswick machine, weighed first, and then printed on the thermal pressure-sensitive labels, The tray is covered. If the supermarket does not need to preprint labels, you can turn off the machine and let the tray pass through.

All pallets pass the calibration index and cross-feed components of the Adco labeler. In this position, there are a pair of feed rollers, which are located on both sides of the tray, and slowly push the trays onto the sleeve console. The vacuum suction device picks up the sleeve label from the magazine and places it on the top of each tray. During the forward conveyance of the tray, the label is placed on the tray. The hot melt adhesive is applied to the bottom of the tray and then quickly passes through the compression station, and the entire process of the sleeve is completed.

Delmore thinks: "Adco's equipment is quite stable, and it is a big step forward compared to the steps we have taken to manually erect, unload, seal, etc. all the cartons. And it adds a lot of flexibility. It can also be realized. Lays up pallets of different widths and lengths."

Equipment upgrade brings sales growth

Schulman, president of Clougherty Packing's marketing department, said: "Since the upgrade of packaging equipment has been completed, the sales of Farmer John's products have increased significantly. And because the product's shelf life is longer, the product has entered the previously never entered. market."

Delmore said sales of sliced ​​pork have also increased dramatically. In fact, the company is now installing a second set of Ross's tray sealing system and a Model S-45 three-way tray sealer. This machine will be used with one of the original two Adco labeling machines. use. Superior flexibility is still the biggest advantage of the device. Delmore further explained: “If we are producing packaged sausages and consumers need small pies, we can quickly switch products and turn to small pies. This is due to the flexibility of the equipment."

Source: Packaging Machinery