Baking & Snack - August 2019 - 150

MULTIPACKS

Putting the variety in multipacks
It's more exciting to have a crayon
box with different colors than a pack
with only blue ones. The same can be
true of consumers and bulk snacks
especially. Although multipacks aren't
going anywhere, variety packs are
increasing in demand. In fact, according to the 2018 "Snack Foods
- Packaging and Processing Market
Assessment and Trends" report from
PMMI, flavor variety is one of the top
consumer snacking trends.
Dennis Gunnell, president,
Formost Fuji, said a snack manufacturer might consider mixing it up.
"You might have potato chips, corn
chips and tortilla chips in the same
pack," he said. "Or you might have
peanut butter sandwich crackers
with cheese crackers."
Now, snack producers are making
variety packs ranging from two to
seven flavors, and some with unbalanced counts inside the carton or bag,
reported Nico Roesler, managing editor of Baking & Snack, in the February
issue of Snac World. The variance
with big box snacks provides options
for the whole family.
However, variety packs come with
their own challenges in addition to
the obstacles with multipacks. One
problem occurs in the packaging line.
"When you have several lines running to build a multipack with various
flavors, the risk of total line shutdown
increases," said Guilherme Vivona,
director of South American operations at BluePrint Automation. "One
line can affect the entire multipack
operation. Additionally, there have
been instances where a decrease in
efficiency has been reported."
Companies should also be aware
that storage can be a big problem.
"Where do you store product while
you're building up inventory of each
flavor to create your variety pack?"
Mr. Gunnell said. Calculating the
space needed is crucial before making
the decision to provide various flavors
in the same container.

150 Baking & Snack August 2019 / www.bakingandsnack.com

gether and provide greater strength.
Snacks are more stable and require
fewer packaging layers. Granola bars
are thick and easily stacked. Mr. Kehrli
said crackers should also be targeted
for multipacks because, despite their
seemingly fragile composition, the
edges are strong. This strength increases when tightly flowwrapped together,
stacked and placed on their side.
The most common secondary packaging for multipacks is regular slotted
cases (RSC), according to Guilherme
Vivona, director of South American operations, BluePrint Automation (BPA).
"In South America, most of those cases
are nicknamed 'boomerang,' as they
can be used several times," he said. "In
the US, they are referred to as reusable cases."
Some single-wrapped snacks have
enough stability with just a standard flowwrapper. This is common
in Europe and Latin America, where
manufacturers are eliminating cartons. "They seem to have a lot more
multipacks than we do. For a stack of
crackers, they typically would not put
those in a carrier tray. With a 12-pack,
for example, they try and reduce the
cost by just overwrapping it in another
layer of material," Mr. Gunnell said.
In the US, products are put in a primary flowwrap, then a carton and a
case, which are palletized and shipped.
Despite the innovation of carton and
case removal, US producers haven't
been able to part with them. Mr. Kehrli
has seen some flowwrapped multipacks in the US made by international
companies that have reduced packaging. This allows them to sell multipacks in dollar stores, which have such
a low price point that the packaging
cost can easily outweigh product cost.
E-commerce is driving innovation
in multipack materials. "I see change
coming for packaging," Mr. Kehrli
said. "As we get away from the grocery store and do more business with
e-commerce, shipping has to be done
in a different way. We don't need cartons. Multipack with flowwrap saves

space, includes more product and is
more efficient, driving costs down."
With e-commerce, consumers are
offered customization with multipacks
such as choosing the quantity, sizes
and flavors. "Producers must be prepared to accommodate these orders
while maintaining efficiency and cost,"
Mr. Vivona said. "This can be a challenge and where a versatile packing solution comes into play."

Machines for the masses
In addition to packaging issues, putting products into multipacks comes
with other challenges. Equipment offers solutions, but with multipacks,
there might be some give-and-take.
"First, you will want a very efficient
indexing system that will correctly
count each product and align them perfectly to be packed," Mr. Vivona stated.
"Second, note that in a multipack system all lines are dependent of each other. If one bagger fails to send its products, the system must shut down until
the failed line comes back up, reducing
plant efficiency."
Higher speeds and efficiency are always common requests. "Producers have
typically relied on manual labor to hand
pack their multipacks," Mr. Vivona said.
"Now producers are looking for reliable
technologies that can replace those people for a safer, more cost-efficient and
productive result."
BPA uses vision-guided robotics to
pick and place items onto an infeed
line, wrapper chain or directly into the
secondary container. "It is quite common for a single secondary packaging
machine to be fed from more than one
bagger," Mr. Vivona noted. "With multipacks, this is not the case. Complexity
increases when it comes to different
SKUs being packed on a single, secondary packaging system."
Cavanna will showcase systems
at the International Baking Industry
Exposition (IBIE), held Sept. 7-11 in
Las Vegas, for bar, snack cake, cookie
and cracker multipacks. Some are
robotic-based and can put product to-

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Baking & Snack - August 2019

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