Closures

Golden State Vintners: Wine bottle inspection

Emerging from the filler enclosure, wine bottles are conveyed through a Heuft (Downers Grove, IL) detection unit that uses a combination of photocells and high-frequency signals to check for cork presence, cork breakage, and improper fill height.

November 30, 2002

Industries: Page 641

Beverage

Golden State Vintners: Capsule application for wine bottle sealing

Long slugs of nested PVC capsules are fed automatically to the capsule applicator. Wine bottles then move into the rotary station, whose tools shrink the capsules tightly around the bottle necks.

November 30, 2002

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Golden State Vintners: Labeling wine bottles

Exiting the capsule applicator, bottles move into the Cavagnino & Gatti labeler. This versatile labeler handles either pressure-sensitive (shown being applied here) or cold glue-applied labels.

November 30, 2002

Secondary Packaging

Golden State Vintners: Case packing of wine bottles

Model Flex 835 case packer from Hartness (Greenville, SC). It's preceded by a Hartness three-lane infeed section that relies on sensors to signal a gating device which lanes are in need of bottles.

November 30, 2002

Beverage

Golden State Vintners: Case coding for wine producer

Cases are conveyed past a Model 5200 hot melt ink-jet coder from Markem (Keene, NH). Twin-head, hot-melt, ink-jet coders bring the line to a close.

November 30, 2002

Filling/capping, dry

Hot fill bottles: Opting for diversity

For PET bottles, the HR process accommodates variations in product, bottle size, weight, fill temperature, blowing rate, and more. Sidel has been developing an array of solutions to respond to these many different packaging criteria.

November 30, 2002

Conveying & accumulation

Wafers won't crumble under robotic handling

Bahlsen, a German manufacturer of cakes and biscuits, has modernized a packaging line with 24 SIG Delta Robots from SIG Pack Systems AG (Beringen, Switzerland).

November 30, 2002

Closures

Kraft's bye-bye to the can-opener?

Kraft Foods has substituted a peelable membrane closure for the conventional steel end on the top of some of its Maxwell House-brand ground coffees.

November 30, 2002

Recycling

Recart takes an important step

Bonduelle, a large European marketer of canned, frozen, and fresh vegetables, plans a March 2003 launch of a variety of vegetables in the Recart™ retortable carton from Tetra Pak (Vernon Hills, IL).

November 30, 2002

Flexibles

Gillette tries a tear strip

Introduced this summer, Boston-based Gillette Co.'s resealable package for all disposable razors utilizes a pressure-sensitive tape reclosure system from Sealstrip (Boyertown, PA).

November 30, 2002

Flexibles

UFOs land in holo cartons

Innovative Candy Concepts, Atlanta, GA, is taking candy packaging to a higher level with the introduction of UFOs.

November 30, 2002

Flexibles

Pez juice launched in pouch

In the candy business, Pez in its refillable dispenser is a classic. Now Leading Brands, Inc., is marketing a Pez shelf-stable juice, in a 8.54-oz (250-mL) “no-spill” stand-up pouch topped with a collectible Pez character.

November 30, 2002

Closures

Vial delivers eye-opening ingenuity

Arthur Lifshey, a senior fellow engineer with Merck & Co., Whitehouse Station, NJ, is the inventive mind behind the patented Ocumeter® Plus, a high-density polyethylene vial for ophthalmic products.

November 30, 2002