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Caramel Wafers are Wrapped and Case Packed at 650/Min

New packaging line for caramel wafer biscuits from Scotland’s Tunnock’s die-fold wraps, multipacks, and case packs caramel wafer biscuits with high flexibility and fast changeover.

Tunnock's multipacks
Via the Syntegon horizontal flow wrapper, individually-wrapped wafers are multipacked in units of four, five, six, or eight.

Thomas Tunnock Limited, commonly known as Tunnock’s, is a family-owned baking business based in Uddingston, near Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1890 by Thomas Tunnock, the company is now one of the region’s largest employers and is renowned in the U.K. for its caramel wafer biscuits and teacakes.

Loudon and TunnockTunnock’s Project Manager Stuart Loudon (l.) and Chairman and CEO Sir Boyd TunnockSir Boyd Tunnock, the 86-year-old Chairman and CEO of Tunnock’s and the grandson of Thomas Tunnock, sets high standards not only for the manufacturing of the company’s products, but also for the packaging of the products. In 2017, due to a steady growth in demand for its caramel wafers, Tunnock’s decided to invest in an additional production and packaging line to increase its output. Having worked with Syntegon, formerly Bosch Packaging Technology, for decades, Sir Boyd Tunnock turned to the equipment supplier to provide the needed packaging equipment.

Says Tunnock, “As quality and reliability are of highest importance to me, I always buy the best equipment. I am happy with my Syntegon packaging lines, and that’s why I asked them to suggest a solution for our new caramel wafer line.”

One of the requirements for the new line was that it have a smaller footprint than Tunnock’s existing equipment, due to limited space in a new packaging hall. In addition, machinery on the line had to be easy to operate, clean, and maintain for fast changeovers.

Syntegon’s solution was a two-leg packaging system, comprising a Sigpack DFR buffer, two die-fold machines from Sapal, two Sigpack HCM horizontal flow wrappers, and a Sigpack TTMC case packer.

Buffer, linear motor ensure constant product flow
Tunnock’s Real Milk Chocolate Caramel Wafer Biscuits come in one size: 94 mm W x 29 mm W x 20 mm high. Packaging of the product on the line takes place after the caramel wafers are enrobed in chocolate and then cooled to an appropriate temperature so they can be automatically handled and packaged.

Once on the packaging line, the wafers are transported to a 90-degree-angled infeed conveyor and are passed on to a row aligner downstream. Here, rows are accurately aligned before moving on to the infeed of the DFR buffer. The rows are then accelerated to the required speed for loading onto gondola shelves within the buffer. Misaligned rows are rejected beforehand by way of a pull-nose dump and a lateral reject conveyor. Suitable product rows are passed on to the shelves of the buffer’s gondola and move through the buffer to the discharge zone. Here, the rows are discharged on a first-in-first-out basis on two levels to the infeeds of the two wrapping legs.

Should either or both of the downstream legs stop running, the buffer will start to accumulate rows of products by moving the two triple carriages down. This increases the percentage of filled gondolas within the DFR buffer. Once the interruption is remedied, the downstream legs speed up to empty the buffer as quickly as possible. The DFR can accumulate products for up to 12 minutes.

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