The newest packaging line at F. Gavina & Sons' new plant is an Italian vertical form/fill/seal machine represented in the U.S. by Fres-co System USA,Inc. that is running 2.25-oz pouches for McDonald's. The machine runs four pouches across at a speed of 70 cycles/min for a total output of 280 pouches/min. Film, which is also supplied by Fres-co, is a two-ply flexo-printed material consisting of 48-ga metallized polyester, laminated to a 2-mil linear low-density polyethylene. The film has a special proprietary layer bonded into the PE to enhance sealing because of the short dwell time of the continuous-motion machine.
The 1,040-mm (40.9-in.)-wide roll of film is mounted on the back of the machine and passes over a knife that cuts it in half. The two halves then travel over rollers on the two sides of the machine. Each half-web is slit by rotary knives into four parallel strips that are 130 mm (5.2-in.) wide each. The strips are brought together in the vertical forming section of the machine. The film travels downward through five sets of continuous roller heaters that seal the outer edges and the three interior vertical seals between the pouches.

Ground coffee is filled into the pouches by four auger fillers mounted in a row beneath a
hopper. A bar vibrates the pouches during filling to settle the product. This enables the pouches to be filled to just below the top seal area, and reduces material usage by about 15 percent compared to other vf/f/s machines, according to Fres-co.
The top seal of the filled pouch is made at the same time as the bottom seal of the next unfilled pouch by a set of rotating
horizontal seal bars. These bars incorporate knives that notch the vertical seals of the pouches to allow them to tear open easily. A rotating horizontal knife cuts the pouches apart horizontally.

The pouches drop onto a conveyor that discharges them into a shipper. Every 40 machine cycles, when 160 pouches have been
loaded into a shipper, the conveyor is activated to move away the filled shipper and replace it with an empty shipper. This is done without interrupting the vf/f/s machine operation.
The shippers are formed by a Model 215 case erector from Marq Packaging Systems, Inc (www.marq.com) that uses a dual-flight lug conveying system to ensure that the case remains square as it is conveyed through the taping section. Filled cases are conveyed to a Marq Model 2101 top taper. After sealing, the shippers pass a Marsh Patrion Plus ink-jet printer from Videojet Technologies, Inc. (www.videojet.com) that applies a date code

Vf/f/s machine runs 280 pouches of coffee/min in a four-up configuration. After filling and cross sealing, the pouches are counted into a shipper. When 160 pouches have been dropped into the shipper, it is automatically replaced

Reprinted from Packaging Digest® October 2004
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