Packaging line upgrade means more haste, less waste

Devon Biscuits in the West Indies produces a range of coconut and chocolate bourbon cream sandwich biscuits.

The biscuits were previously wrapped on an intermittent motion, die fold end wrapping machine. They were wrapped in slugs of biscuits stacked on edge. The process was slow and involved the use of three machines, which resulted in high levels of scrap product and packaging film.

The company engaged the Bradman Lake Group (BLG) of Suffolk, UK, to streamline its biscuit packaging process.

BLG supplied a Flowtronic FT130 continuous motion biscuits-on-edge flow wrapping machine. This allowed for a new packaging design that revamped the product appearance, allowing for a pillow-style flowpack that uses transverse heat seals incorporating gusset tucked ends. The machine was designed to fit within the limited floor space of the plant and provided the company with higher wrapping speeds of up to 90 packs/min, high production efficiencies and a reduction in wastage.

The FT130 wrapper infeed was connected to a specially designed continuous motion, servo-driven, dual-lane, manually loaded crossfeed conveyor. This layout allowed up to four operators at each corner to load slugs of the biscuits from the biscuit production line.

The machine’s features include: ‘no product, no pack’, which minimises wastage of empty wraps, and ‘no gap, no seal’ crimp, which minimises stoppages. Once product collation is in process, the product is not released until the final sealing, which minimises jamming on the machine.