“The benefit of a resealable feature is twofold,” says John Roumelle, marketing manager at Betta Foods. “It serves as a visual differentiating factor at point of purchase, and it allows our brands to stand out based on the added convenience.”
Betta Foods partnered with Zip-Pak (www.zippak.com) and Propac Industrial Pty Ltd. (www.propac.com.au) to commission a new Propac form/fill/seal AV-2.2 machine that applies Zip-Pak press-to-close zippers on polypropylene laminated film packaging for the liquorice range. The machine packs AllSorts in 8.78-oz (250-g), 14.05-oz (400-g), and 35.27-oz (1-kg) gusseted stand-up bags and Bullets candy in 7.025-oz (200-g) and 4.05-oz (400-g) pillow pouches.
According to Zip-Pak, the machine is similar to a typical vf/f/s machine. Except that after the film unwinds, before the forming collar at the tube, the zipper is brought from a spool, cut to the desired length, and attached across the web. The zipper is a three-flange design and the single flange, which is the leading portion of the zipper, is attached to the film. This allows it to be conveyed over the forming collar. The pouch is formed and filled, and the two remaining flanges are attached and sealed into the top of the pouch.
With zipper application in the transverse direction, the machine allows easy changeover in less than an hour to produce either pillow packages for Bullets or quad-seal packages for AllSorts. The film is a BOPP/CPP trapped print lamination with flexographic printing in eight colors. The filled pouches are packed into paperboard shippers by hand.
According to Zip-Pak, the zipper costs about $.025 per foot; therefore, a zipper on a 6”-wide package is $.0125. By comparison, food storage bags cost between 12¢ and 15¢. The new resealable liquorice products sell in Australian supermarkets for 2.60 to 4.20 Australian dollars, depending on package size.
