adapa Group, one of Europe’s leading companies in the flexible packaging solutions segment, has just made a major investment in two new lines for high-performance shrink bags at its UK St. Helens plant. adapa now offers its UK customers an extensive shrink bag capacity. This strategic move further strengthens adapa’s supply chain agility enabling improved service to existing and new shrink bags customers.
Two bag-making lines for the UK market
Shrink materials are an important part of adapa’s strategic product portfolio. The specialist for flexible packaging supplies all types, shapes and film thicknesses for perfect shrink solutions and has been doing so for over 40 years. With this recent investment, UK customers will benefit from improved service backed by the group’s comprehensive shrink expertise. The two new lines in St Helens can process shrink bags in widths of between 200mm and 1050mm and lengths between 100mm and 2000mm. Shrink Bags are available in a variety of configurations including straight or round bottom seals, loose or as perforated on reel (POR) formats. Inline printing of single colour stamps and logos are available for the entire range. One line has already been in operation since the beginning of April with the second coming on line at the end of May.
The shrink bag – a real all-rounder
Shrink bags are a packaging solution that has been tried and tested for decades and they are at the same time a real high-tech product: modern shrink materials are extremely thin and consist of several different layers that give the respective packaging its special properties. Shrink packaging is enormously efficient and offers the packaged goods best protection and quality preservation throughout their entire life cycle – from storage to transport and distribution to sales at the POS. Shrink bags are used as ripening packaging for certain products, such as cheese or meat. With their barrier properties optimally adapted to the respective packaged goods, they ensure first-class product quality, e.g. tenderly matured meat or perfectly ripened cheese. In terms of look and feel, shrink packaging is an “honest package”: it presents its contents in a way that is clearly visible and tangible from all sides. In addition, the good printability offers many possibilities for an eye-catching brand presentation, whether in the service counter or on the self-service shelf in the food retailers.
Increased automation, changed requirements
The process sequences in shrink bag packaging are largely automated today. The bags are opened in the machines, filled with the product, vacuumed, sealed and finally shrunk. Robot technology is increasingly used to fill the pouches. This high degree of automation has massively increased the cycle rate (packs/minute) and has led to a doubling of the packing speed in recent years. The high speed, combined with shorter cycle times, leaves less time for sealing, so the sealing media have been adapted to ever smaller processing windows. In addition, shrink bags for these highly automated packaging processes require appropriate mechanical strength as well as particularly reliable sealing seams, as these cheese pieces or loaves, can be packaged relatively well automatically, this is not always possible to the same extent for soft products with varying sizes, such as fresh meat.
Surprisingly sustainable thanks to material savings
In the spirit of resource conservation and climate protection, adapa strives with its entire portfolio of flexible packaging solutions to combine the best packaging performance and material usage. In the shrink bag segment, this has been achieved through many years of development work, which has resulted in ever thinner films, and has made this packaging variant an extremely sustainable solution. Shrink bags combine reliable product protection – which thus simultaneously counteracts food waste – with minimal material use. For example, a shrink bag with a weight of only about 12 grams is needed for the ripening packaging of a cheese wheel weighing about 3.5 kilograms – on balance, an excellent ratio between the weight of the packaged product and that of the packaging material.
Environmental Packaging Award shortlisting for VACUshrink(re) MEX 55
In the course of the packaging industry’s commitment to develop more sustainable solutions, the classic shrink bag can make full use of its advantageous properties. As part of its company-wide rethink initiative, adapa Group is working with its customers to promote the replacement of conventional packaging with more sustainable alternatives. A prime example of this is the VACUshrink(re) MEX 55: the shrink bag with high barrier, which is suitable for packaging meat or cheese, does not require any cross-linking. The certified recyclable PE-based bag is free of PA layers or PVDC barrier and can be easily processed on conventional equipment. For this, the VACUshrink(re) MEX 55 was awarded the coveted WorldStar Award 2023 in the category Packaging Materials and Components. It also won the German Packaging Award 2022 in the Sustainability category and the PackTheFuture Award 2023 in the Design for Recycling category.
Innovations in Food (& Beverage) Processing & Packaging is a quarterly magazine distributed globally both in Print and Digital formats. www.innovationsfood.com. Twitter: @Innovfoodtech. Instagram: @innovationsinfoodtechnology. Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/terry-prior52
