Baking & Snack - May 2019 - 120

A wrapper's seal of approval

WRAPPERS

der to get barrier protectors, they need to be quite thick."
While such recyclable materials are an environmentally friendly fix, they don't have the availability yet to
gain commitment from the entire industry. "If you're a
big company with a very well-known product, you can't
get enough of that material to meet your needs," said
Dennis Gunnell, president, Formost Fuji. "It's the bottleneck of not having a supplier. We'll catch up with that,
but it's going to take a little while."
As material companies work to overcome sustainability challenges, baking and snack manufacturers might be
wondering what part they play in it and why they should
play it. Not only can the right actions channel a greater
message of sustainability to consumers, but waste reduction can also achieve another important reduction: a
company's overall production cost.

In full force
When it comes to reducing packaging waste, the most
obvious way is eliminating the excess length and width
of the material. And in recent years, many baking and
snack companies have been doing just that, all while increasing consumers' perception of their green awareness.
"Nobody wants to make the packages bigger or use
more material than they need to, so companies are trying
to make the packages as small or tight as they can to develop as much film savings as they can," Mr. Cucullu said.
Formost Fuji's premium bread wrapping machines use
11 to 14% less material overall than the previous systems.
Part of this reduction was achieved by using a small seal
and downgauging the package - it was lowered by 20%
in thickness - with the same result. "Over the course of a
month, a year, a life of the machine, that's a huge amount
of material that's not wasted," Mr. Gunnell said. "When
you're looking at a candy bar or bag of chips, you'll see
extra material because the sizing is generous. We try to
design the machine so it can wrap the tightest package
that's successful for what the customer wants to achieve."
The more consistent a product is, the easier it will
be for machines to wrap them tightly. "If the customer
can't get the product consistent, we've got to design the
equipment for the worst-case scenario," Mr. Meer said.
"However, the better product control, the less tolerance
buildup we have to worry about and the tighter we can
make the package. It's a team effort."
Despite trying to develop the tightest packaging, bakers
may find that some other factors prevent them from eliminating material to be more environmentally friendly, according to Mr. Gunnell. These include the safety and shelf
life of the product as well as the durability of the package to
withstand the distribution process.
"When we talk about waste, what else can we do?"
asked Bill Kehrli, vice-president of sales and marketing,

120 Baking & Snack May 2019 / www.bakingandsnack.com

Although package seals are key for shelf
stability, they shouldn't send baking and
snack companies backward in their efforts
to reduce waste. In fact, sealing is one
aspect of the line that manufacturers have
improved to use less material.
"We're now able to make some of the
seals smaller," said Dennis Gunnell, president, Formost Fuji. "You may only save an
eighth of an inch in your seal pattern, but
over millions of packages that becomes
pretty substantial."
Smaller seals are possible because products are more uniform and wrapper material is better quality and thinner. "Thinner
films allow us to go faster and still maintain
a seal," said Kelly Meer, product manager,
Bosch Packaging Technology. "By improving product consistency, we don't need a
wider seal to make up for inconsistencies."
There are two main types of seals: cold
and heat. A cold seal is an adhesive, or
a type of glue that is sealed by pressure
only on the wrapper. Chuck Cucullu, vicepresident of sales and marketing, Campbell
Packaging, said cold seal films can run at
high speeds and create operational efficiencies by eliminating speed limitations.
Bill Kehrli, vice-president of sales and
marketing, Cavanna Packaging, said a
heat seal, which almost welds the material
together, is more complicated. It requires a
specific temperature and a slower process,
but one that's quick enough to not damage the wrapper. "If it stays there too long,
the heat starts melting the film," Mr. Kehrli
explained. "It's a window - a sweet spot
so to speak - of film sealability."
Heat sealing methods have improved,
partly because the material itself is more
tolerant. "Because those tolerances are
tighter, we're able to seal it tighter with a
more consistent seal," Mr. Gunnell said.
"We have the ability to do individual temperature control in which we can put heat
where we want it, when we want it and at
the level we want it."
While the traditional methods of sealing
have improved, a new alternative is also
breaking ground. "We have developed in
the last three to five years, ultrasonic sealers, which use ultrasonic waves to penetrate the film and seal it without heat at all,"
Mr. Kehrli said. This could mean less room
for errors and less material usage, which
results in less waste.

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Baking & Snack - May 2019

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