Future-proofed filling: Machinery suppliers enhance hygiene and efficiency amid supply chain pressures

18 May 2022 --- Filling machinery in the packaging industry faces much of the same problems as any other area – raw material shortages, inflating prices, and late delivery times for essential components. As these issues continue to plague packaging players, customers and consumers are simultaneously demanding greater levels of hygiene and efficiency in their machines.

Dealing with these rising demands while under the strain of supply chain and economic issues is unprecedented for many companies. PackagingInsights sits down with Marco Motta, area sales manager for Zacmi, an Italian packaging machinery company that uses 98% recyclable materials to construct its machinery. 

Fulcini describes exactly what customers are demanding more of, how supply chain issues impact business, and what Zacmi is doing to deal with the situation. We also look at some of the company’s latest filling machinery innovations and similar market developments elsewhere. 

Hygiene and efficiency 
Packaging customers want higher hygiene and higher efficiency, Motta emphasizes. 

Zacmi's flowmeter filler for hot and cold liquid products.“We have launched new hygienic designs involving protection guards, machine cleanability and accessibility. For example, the development of Ultra Clean Cold Fill solutions and validation protocol.” 

Zacmi’s piston filling machine uses clean (CIP) and washes in place (WIP) design to maintain hygiene between fills. Whenever there is a change in recipe production, the machine undergoes a washing cycle for disinfection, exactly as is done at the end of each production run.

“We also have more flexible solutions reducing downtimes and inefficiencies, such as the new Universal format device,” Motta continues. 

Zacmi’s vacuum filler machine, used for can filling, also uses CIP and external WIP. The filler is equipped with a dedicated pump and rotary distribution system that creates a vacuum in the container. The container comes into contact with the product distribution tank through special valves. The Vacuum Filler includes a “No Can-No Fill” device. 

Innova Market Insights found that 59% of global consumers believe packaging’s protective function is more important since COVID-19. Despite a longer-term plastic reduction trend, consumers mostly supported the increased use of plastic for hygiene reasons during the pandemic. While 20% of global consumers favored more plastics, 42% saw them as an undesirable necessity during COVID-19. 

Safeguarding solutions 
Zacmi is not the only packaging player innovating for increased hygiene demands. Recently, KHS presented its portfolio of modern filling technology and environmentally-friendly packaging systems at Anuga FoodTec in Cologne, Germany. The group showcased its hygienic solutions for filling sensitive beverages. These include the InnoPET BloFill ACF-L stretch blow molder/filler block, which provides further development for sensitive beverages in PET bottles that are especially low on space. The pocket filler vibrating cone, used for difficult to fill products.

KHS says the new system scores with a multitude of innovations – one being its new switching valve. This valve controls the volume of the inflow to the actual filling valve, permitting a total of four different filling speeds. Bottle volumes, both large and small, with varying viscosities, can be processed on this machinery – with “extremely” low foaming a bonus. 

Similarly, last year Syntegon Technology unveiled an inline filling machine called LFS, whose modular design allows for individual configurations to meet specific requirements of meat and dairy manufacturers. The company is touting the machine’s versatility as a “next-generation” advancement on previous designs, which can be updated and improved without replacement. 

The LFS can be equipped with up to three servo-driven pump systems, either a tank pump or a newly developed single pump system, to cover a variety of different product viscosities. The dosing station incorporates exchangeable nozzles as well as integrated CIP and sterilization in place for ultra-clean configurations. 

The machine also processes all common container formats with a diameter between 60 and 160 mL on up to eight lanes with a maximum output rate of up to 20,000 cups per hour. In sequential indexing configuration, alternating carrier plates allow for processing two different packaging formats one after another without format changes needed.

These innovations are intended to help “future-proof” packagers against upcoming challenges and customer demands by equipping businesses with the most reliable and durable technology possible. 

Raw material sourcing 
Over the past year, much of the industry’s problems have stemmed from trouble sourcing the right raw materials. Issues with metal and chemical element supplies have threatened packagers with potential catastrophe, and everywhere machine producers are feeling the heat of rising prices. Metal prices and delivery times have gone up steeply over the past year.

Trade disputes between China and the West last year led to a massive rise in prices as the Chinese government shut down magnesium exports and tightened the supply of steel and aluminum, all of which it has a global monopoly on. 

We witnessed the ongoing effects of this at Empack 2022 recently, where an unnamed spokesperson told us the EU is failing to aid European industry sufficiently while Chinese businesses continue to take advantage of the ongoing crises swamping markets – particularly in the paper industry. 

Syntegon also expressed concern over the boom in stainless steel pricing, while cardboard specialist Rajapack commented on how these challenges – despite being highly disruptive – are making trade more exciting and rewarding when success is achieved. 

Zacmi is no exception here. “Delivery times for electronic components and raw materials are the biggest challenges we face at the moment. We are tackling them by empowering our supply chain and by pushing on standardization,” says Motta. 

Future-proofing for raw material supplies will be as important as creating designs that ensure longevity. 

By Louis Gore-Langton