FDBusiness.com

The meat market remains fast-moving and competitive. As part of this processors and retailers are always looking for a point of differentiation. As well as new product development, this can mean new pack formats. Convenience remains a major driver here but this has to be matched by the ability to maintain product quality and freshness and extend shelf life.

This has led to the introduction of many new pack types. As well as the different shapes and designs of trays, there are now a wide variety of sealing requirements in addition to traditional atmospheric sealing, including Gas Flush, Hermetic Shrink, Vacuum, Skin Pack, Skin Plus and Skin Deep.

Challenges

These bring with them a number of challenges. Companies need the flexibility to be able to respond to changing market requirements and consumer demands in their style of pack. At the same time, they must be able to explore any new pack options while maintaining current production. Equally significant, the proliferation of new products and pack types means that many manufacturers now have to handle a variety of different packs on a single line.

Meanwhile the need for speed and efficiency on the production and packing line remains essential.

Tray sealing specialist Proseal has addressed these challenges by ensuring its GTe range of tray sealers can handle all types of pack on the same machine. This gives manufacturers the ability easily to switch between packs during normal production with minimal downtime.

Future-proofing

The other focus of the company’s development work has been on future-proofing its models. There is little point having a machine that is fast and efficient if it is not able to cope with new pack formats.

Proseal’s GTe platform is therefore designed to be completely adaptable in order to incorporate the latest developments. For every feature introduced into new models, the company also ensures that it can be retrofitted to existing machines so that all customers keep up-to-date with latest trends.

In this way, meat processors are well equipped to cope with ever-changing market requirements without the need to invest in new machines each time.

In terms of increasing line speeds, Proseal’s pioneering ProMotion intelligent buffering system enables trays to feed continuously into the tray sealer without having to pre-sort and adjust pack spacing. It also improves product handling since there are fewer line stoppages due to misplaced trays.

In addition, and particularly important for retail markets, the unique Eseal® technology provides high quality seal reliability while at the same time delivering a 92% reduction in energy usage, which offers valuable cost savings and sustainability benefits.  It can also decrease gas flushing cycle times by ensuring accurate gas flush positioning.

Fully Integrated

Line speeds and efficiencies are further increased and enhanced when all machines are fully integrated. The Proseal tray sealer screen is able to monitor and control the entire line. This has two particular advantages. In the event of a problem, the tray sealer is able to pass a stop signal to the equipment further up the line. This allows the line to come to a controlled stop, which avoids overfeeding of the tray sealer and prevents unnecessary product or packaging waste.

Equally important, continual online monitoring enables the tray sealer to collect data on small but unscheduled line stoppages. This can help production managers and engineers to identify recurring problems and implement corrective action to maximise line uptime.

In a constantly changing and developing market, this ability to respond quickly to the latest trends while maintaining high efficiencies can make all the difference to a business’s success and growth.