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Zipper aids cereal packing productivity

New Zealand cereal maker shifts to packaging web with a pre-applied zipper to cut scrap and improve output.

The dry cereal market is as competitive in New Zealand as it is in the United States. Sanitarium Health Food Co., Auckland, New Zealand, has had marketplace success with its Skippy-brand cornflakes and Ricies, its rice-based children’s cereal, in part because the company added resealable zippers in 2001 to its flexible packs. Sanitarium has pioneered many new concepts in the marketing and packaging of its productions for more than a century.

As consumer friendly as the two packages are, they weren’t very production friendly to Sanitarium’s packaging operation. The company filled the two cereals on Australian-made Propac vertical form/fill/seal machines that applied the zipper track in-line with packaging.

“Tracking the film was tricky because the high heat required for zipper attachment caused distortion in the film,” says Mike Mancer, production manager at Sanitarium. “Poor sealing and inaccurate placement of zippers on bags were also key issues. Because the film wasn’t holding registration well, we had unacceptable scrap levels.”

The company then turned to AEP Flexipac, a long-time film converter, for help. Working closely with Zip-Pak, AEP was able to incorporate a custom zipper onto what AEP calls the “bag-top open” application by using a specialized film. The result was AEP’s Armaloc® pre-applied zipper film that is produced on Inno-Lok® equipment from Hudson-Sharp.

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