New Pouch Packaging Machine Produces Wide Range of Sizes

For food and beverage manufacturers who package their liquid and viscous products in pouches, GEI Mateer's new PC 18 vertical-form-fill-seal machine offers the widest range of pouch size and fill volume capability on one V-F-F-S frame. Pouches from 1 1/2 to 12 inches wide (38 mm to 30 cm) that can hold product volumes from 1/4 oz to 1 gallon (7 g to 19 L) can be easily produced. The unit's high-speed operation improves both productivity and product quality, producing as many as 960 four-side sealed pouches each minute at speeds up to 80 strokes a minute, and handling up to 12 lanes per stroke.

Pumpable products ranging in viscosity from water to liquid cheese can be handled along with particulates up to 1 1/2 inches (38 mm). Offered with a two-stage-fill or a three-stage-fill, the system can handle products that do not maintain suspension and create a consistently proportioned mix of products in every pouch via multi-stage filling. The V-F-F-S system can be designed to handle hot or cold fill applications and is built to meet USDA for Meat and Poultry, and FDA requirements, and can be built to Dairy 3A criteria.

High filling speeds are achieved through the application of servo-drive and coordinated machine motion. The positive-displacement servo-driven pumps maintain a fill accuracy of +/-0.025% by volume to reduce product give-away. The advanced motion control on the PC 18 eliminates the timing constraints that limit traditional mechanical systems and enables each machine function to be individually controlled. Advanced motion control and servo-driven pumps minimize product splashing and keep the seal area free of product by beginning each fill cycle slowly and then increasing the fill speed during each cycle.

All machine functions can be pre-programmed, providing quick and accurate changeover routines for pouch and product changes. The intuitive touch-screen control panel is simple to use.

Optional features, such as an integral fitment applicator that allows product manufacturers to apply fitments to pouches during pouch forming, are designed to help manufacturers differentiate product and improve customers' ease-of-use, while maintaining packaging costs. The machine can also produce shaped "profile" pouches, pouches with peelable seals, pouches with front and rear registration from two separate film rolls, as well as traditional multi-compartment pouches, and "burst" multi-compartment pouches with internal rupture seals and external welded seals. A wide variety of both flexible and semi-flexible packaging materials can be used on this equipment and the machine can be easily integrated with in-line printing and labeling systems.

GEI Mateer designs and manufactures auger filling, specialty filling, roll-through labeling, and pressure-sensitive labeling machinery.

For more information, contact GEI Mateer, A Division of GEI International, Inc., 700 Pennsylvania Dr., Exton, PA 19341. Tel: 610-321-1100; Fax: 610- 321-1199.