The Chines packaging automation and machinery manufacturer ELITER Packaging Machinery has recently developed and unveiled an all servo-driven and advanced Wrap-Around Sleever – a packaging machine that can receives ready meals, usually loaded in trays, bowls, tubs and pots, wrap them with paperboard sleeve and complete closure with adhesive in the inferior part the package.
The Advanced Packaging Automation Solution for Ready-to-Eat Meals
The launched Wrap Around Sleever, named ESTRENA™, is an all servo driven carton sleeving machine developed with the joint effort of ELITER Packaging Machinery and SIEMENS AG China. The Sleever is designed also with concerns around the complex environment at food processing facilities so as to reach the compliant Ingress Protection rating. As the standard features, ESTRENA™ Wrap-Around Sleever employs a solid robust, hygienic and stainless-steel construction, and is of aesthetic and ergonomic structure with excellent accessibility for maintenance and cleaning.
The machine is built on total SIEMENS Platform joined by SINAMICS V90 servo systems and can run up to 120 sleeves per minute. The sleever fits the high level of customization of packaging sleeve and can wraps ready meals in such as microwavable pasta, ready-to-eat tuna and salad, lasagna, vegan meals with a variety of sleeve styles including complete wrap-around, partial wrap-around, sleeve with additional base, sleeve with openings… etc.
In the context of ready meals production line, the sleever can be connected with thermoformers, tray sealers, to received trays of ready and prepared meals from upstream. The ready meals are timed and introduced to the sleever, then the machine places unglued and flat sleeves on each on them, slides and wraps them with the sleeves and completes the closure with hot melt glue on the bottom.
“We have bumped into various projects where customer would like specific packaging solutions to wrap trays of ready meals with unglued sleeve blanks rather than having the packages inserted into sleeve blanks pre-glued by, for example, a cartoner. The hygiene is another factor to concern so that we offer as well the option to get machine wash down to IP65”, said Zhiwei Bao, general manager of ELITER Packaging Machinery.
The edge that the sleever has over a cartoning machine when it comes to the carton sleeving of ready meals is that sleever can often wraps the sleeve in a tighter manner, and what’s more, the sleever is usually of better accessibility for maintenance and cleaning, which is a major concern when installing an equipment at a food processing facility where the environment tends to be with lots of materials smeared and spilled around.
Upsurging Ready Meals Consumption and Sustainable Sleeve Packaging
Reay-to-eat meals are those prepared meals that purchased in supermarkets and then taken elsewhere, for example, home for consumption. Common forms of ready meals are those microwavable meals that are at immediate availability for enjoying after been heated. Research and studies have shown that market of ready meal is booming worldwide, principally due to the changing and fast-pace lifestyle in the modern world.
Coming together with the mentioned trend is that replacement of plastics with paper in packaging, featuring companies in the food and beverage industry which have been looking into reducing single-use plastics with reusable and recyclable or compostable packaging to avoid environmental impacts.
“We have seen the upsurging market volume of ready and prepared meals, not only in China but as well at an international level. At meanwhile, wrap-around application is getting more and more popular either for its own characteristics of great advertising performance or the global trend of replacing plastics with cardboard sleeve. ESTRENA™ Wrap-Around Sleever is exactly the fast, responsive and standards-compliant solution we offer the market faced with these trends, and you can trust ESTRENA™ as the market-leading sleeve packaging machine for ready meals.”, addressed Bao.
About ELITER Packaging Machinery
ÉLITER Packaging Machinery, located in Wenzhou, China, is a family business for three generations in the sector of packaging machines and packaging automation. The company currently manufactures cartoning machines, film overwrappers and wrap-around sleevers and is investing further into R+D+I to take a transformation and provide more intelligent and advanced packaging automation solutions to clients worldwide.
To find more information about Wrap-Around Sleever and sleeve packaging automation by ELITER Packaging Machinery, visit please: https://www.eliter-packaging.com