Non-Food: Packing a Wide Variety Correctly
The term non-food covers a very wide range of different goods. Therefore, these items, be they screws, dishwasher tabs, or flower bulbs, require individual packaging solutions. At the upcoming Interpack, exhibitors want to present their relevant innovation.
The optimum packaging always depends on the product to be packaged. Just like the right filling and packaging machine. In the non-food sector, a first distinction is made between liquid and rigid products. The former, for example hand soap, household chemicals, or cleaning agents, require robust packaging with special barrier properties. Since these products are not usually consumed all at once, convenience plays a major role here. Thus, their packaging is often equipped with spouts and dosing aids for easy handling or with zip or pressure closures for resealing for later use.
Dimensionally stable non-food products such as crayons, screws, or batteries, as well as powdered goods such as putty powder or detergent, also require sturdy packaging. These goods are usually pre-packed in bags, folding boxes, cans, blisters, thermoformed packaging, or bottles before they make their way to the retailer in stable outer packaging. For this purpose, they can also be bundled and banded to save material. Bandall has currently launched a modular, fully automatic bundling machine as part of a completely revised series of fully automatic machines, which the company will exhibit at Interpack 2023. It has been specially designed for use in pre-packing operations or co-packing. Bundled products are banded, which the company says saves up to 80 percent of material compared to shrink-wrapping.
Convenient clip closure packaging
Clip closure solutions are not only suitable for food products. Although the supplier Poly-clip System originally developed them for the meat processing industry, they are now also used in the non-food sector, for example for sealants and adhesives or convenience products. The clip-pak clip closure solution consists of a tubular bag with a clip closure at each end and is suitable for numerous sectors outside the food industry: chemical and pharmaceutical applications, pet food, or hygiene products. For sealants and adhesives, for example, the clip-pak system is an alternative to cartridges. The company has also developed a new automatic sealing/clipping machine that enables flexible two-color product labeling, for example with hazardous goods symbols. The machine processes flat film from the roll into ready-to-fill, securely sealed tubular pouches.
This is expected to save over 90 percent of packaging material compared to disposable cartridges and to reduce packaging costs by about 30 percent.
Wherever non-food products require special protection or a barrier against gases and moisture, vacuum bags like those from Allfo can be used. In them, electronic and machine components or bulk goods are well protected against external influences such as moisture or dirt. Screws, nuts, granulates, or other small and very small parts, for example, must not get damp, otherwise they could rust or lose their flowability. Too much friction during transport also damages sensitive products and can be avoided by vacuum bags, in which even bulk goods are packed safely and tightly. Even pointed and sharp-edged products can be vacuum-packed puncture-proof with the bags made of PA/PE composite film on any commercially available chamber machine.
Less sensitive non-food products such as toys, cosmetics, spare parts, or handicraft accessories are kept safe in pouches made of a new packaging paper from Mitsubishi HiTec Paper. The 75g virgin-fiber-based paper offers particularly good heat-sealability and is a sustainable alternative to existing plastic packaging made from films and film laminates. The new paper has already been successfully tested on packaging machines from leading manufacturers, is FSC and PEFC certified and can be printed in offset as well as flexo machines.
Exhibitors will showcase the packaging of non-food products aat Interpack from May 4 to 10, 2023, in Düsseldorf. At the world’s leading trade show for processing & packaging, visitors will find solutions in Halls 5, 6 and 11 to 14. For more information on interpack, visit www.interpack.de.
