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Ball-shaped yogurt pots thermoformed in-house

French yogurt producer shows how open-mold thermoforming technology can be used to produce custom-shaped yogurt containers for the same cost as straight-walled cups.

With open-mold thermoforming, Senagral can manufacture its shaped ‘ball cups’ in-house at a reduced cost.
With open-mold thermoforming, Senagral can manufacture its shaped ‘ball cups’ in-house at a reduced cost.

Over the past several years, yogurt has been a booming market in the U.S. But how can a brand owner differentiate their product from the masses in the dairy aisle? IMA Dairy & Food Group USA, formerly OYSTAR USA, has a solution that focuses on packaging differentiation. In 2015, it introduced thermoforming technology to the U.S. that allows food manufacturers to create proprietary shapes for cups, as well as bottles, at nearly the same cost as standard molds.

IMA’s Open Mold technology has been around for more than a decade in Europe. In 2006, French dairy company Senagral acquired Open Mold thermoforming to manufacture its custom “ball cups” in-house and reduce its packaging costs.

Senagral’s ball cup was originally introduced as a response to a custom “yogurt bubble” container from Dannon. Senagral designed its unique-to-brand yogurt pot with Alpla, which supplied the preformed cups to Senagral until the company’s installation of an Erca thermoforming machine. Open Mold traditionally is integrated into IMA’s Erca EF form/fill/seal machine, however Senagral was already using an Erca filling and sealing machine for the preformed cups.

“Senagral’s requirements for the thermoforming technology were that it reduce the cost of their packaging, while creating exactly the same cup shape as they had and the same top-load resistance, with an output speed of 36,000 cups an hour,” explains Dominique Schwab of Erca.

Easy integration

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