A Louisiana's
Sausage producing company extends its brand of meats and sausages to a
broader audience and to resturants with a vacuum-packing system
that doubles capacity for packs in various sizes and shapes.
A processor/packer
of meats, sausages and prepared entrees, wanted to extend its
popular local brand to a larger market base. For the company, this
meant a move beyond what it defines as "simple pouch packaging"
to fully automatic vacuum, packing of products on a variety
of shapes and sizes.
Thanks to an M860 horizontal thermoform/fill/seal system from
Multivac that replaces
two semi-automatic pouching machines, the company has been able
to double capacity and increase refrigerated shelf life from
eight to 10 weeks, and expand distribution from Louisiana to
at least three additional states, as well as to larger portions
of Texas and to resturants.
The machines have also allowed the company to lower its energy
consumption compared with the former pouching system, which
required cool-down time.
"Our brand name and unique Cajun flavor have long been
recognized locally, but Multivac's rollstock system helped us
expand into bigger and more lucrative markets," states
the company's owner and president. "supermarkets and foodservice retailers that had never
seen our unique product lines before now see great opportunities
for sales. They envision great potential to market our sausage-based
meals to consumers. Response to the products and new packaging
has been positive. So the packaging system is allowing us to
compete in bigger markets."
Not only did the company want to drive up sales in supermarket
chains, but it also wanted to increase interest in its products
with retaurants, an emerging percentage of its clientele. One
customer owns a pair of Chicago-based restaurants specializing
in Louisiana-style cuisine.
Being familiar with Multivac equipment, the company called in the
equipment supplier for the M860 machine, which would be required
to accommodate a wide range of meat and sausage products. These
include link and rope sausage in 1-to-4lb quantities, sliced,
pickled, pork links, seasoned whole turkey roast, mixed, smoked
sausage, boudin and even head cheese blocks in several quantities.
Machine speeds vary by products variety, but the average about
14 cycles/min or 2500 lb/hr, says the companies plant manager.
"That's almost double what we ran previously," he
points out. And the M860 reduces material waste in the process,
he adds. "We don't have specific figures on the exact savings,
but now that everything is done automatically, we notice less
packaging waste."
The machine replaces two others: a semiautomatic chamber machine
and an earlier Multivac machine, as well as a "much larger
crew," the spokesperson adds. "The M860 requires far less
labor to run in less time. One of our previous chamber machines
ran eight cycles a minute; the other ran nine cycles a minute
on a two-pound package."
Like all Multivac machines, the tf/f/s system was
customized to meet its requirements for many package configurations,
ensuring that the packages would be optimizied for packaging,
shipping, stocking, selling, and ultimately for convenient use
by consumers.
"We wanted a machine that could pack every product we make,"
the spokesperson tells. "They assessed all of our products,
and the made it work." The equipment was installed and
tested during a weekend, and completed in less than three hours.
Production resumed ahead of schedule," says the company president.
"Operations personnel adapted quickly to the machine controls."
Clearly durable structures
The system
produces vacuum-packs using two rollstocks from Cryovac: a food-grade
film featuring polypropylene and a Surlyn sealant forming web
that's either 5 or 7 mils thick, depending on specific package
draw depth (which ranges from 1 1/4 to 7 in.).This web is formed
at temperatures of 120 deg C. The company says the food-grade,
non-forming web is a clear 2.6 mil nylon/Surlyn sealant coex
film that's sealed to the forming web, also at 120 deg C.
The film rolls measure 422 mm wide. The company spokesperson says he believes
the package structure to be durable, transparent and flexible,
and it maintains the necessary residual oxygen and moisture
levels needed to protect the meats while allowing for a clear
view of the products. After they're loaded onto the vacuum system
and a production run begins, the rolls unwind, and the webs
index through a heating and forming station to a 4-ft product-loading
area where prepared product is placed in divided container cavities.
The packs are then vacuumized just prior to sealing to battle
bacteria and spoilage.
The packages are produced as top and bottom webs of rollstock
unwind at the machine's infeed. The base web is transported
into and positively driven through the machine by individual
grippers that hold the film flat and taught. Able to accept
web widths from 10.2 to 24.4 in., and film gauges up to 30 mils,
the M860's gripper chain allows for a wide tolerance in web
widths and thicker films, eliminating problems such as film
splitting. The grippers index the webs through to the discharge
end and open smoothly to release the edge trim.
As the bottom
film web progresses onto the forming-die box to a set of pockets
or cavities positioned two-to six-up, a positive-forming process
activates in which the semi-rigid film is heated, making it
pliable, and is pulled by a vacuum and formed into the cavities.
Air is blown onto the film as it is heated, stretching it into
the cavities and distributing it evenly into the corners and
edges. Heating temperature is controlled to achieve optimum
forming conditions.
The shaped forming web inside the cavities indexes to the loading
area between the forming and sealing stations, where the sausage
products meanwhile are hand-cut or rolled and are weighed before
being placed by operators into the package cavities. Next, the
top web unwinds and is date-stamped by a Bell-Mark
coder mounted in-line. (pictured)
The packs
are also labeled with up to three pressure-sensitive labels
by an in-line Etikettiertechnik GmbH labeler from Germany, mounted
on the machine and provided by Multivac. As the webs advance,
the meats are then covered with the top film web, which is then
sealed to the bottom web in the sealing station. Just prior
to sealing, however, a vacuum us pulled, which evacuates the
air surrounding the product. The air is drawn away by a pump,
which creates a vacuum, and the hot sealing platen seals the
top and bottom webs hermetically, shrinking around the contours
of each product.
The hot sealing platen employs custom sealing and forming dies
and custom sealing pressure diaphragms made to suit each package
size. The sealed web is soon seperated into individual packages
as the web is cut across the machine direction. As the edges
are still held by the grippers, rotary knives then cut off the
film in the longitudinal direction. The trim is still held by
the grippers and is then displaced into a trim canister.
Individual packages leave the machine and are case-packed and
palletized by hand. The cases are sealed with help from a Little
David tape sealer from Loveshaw. The loads are then shipped
by the company's own trucks or trailers or are routed to several
regional distributors.
Increased
shelf life?
The company
runs the tf/f/s machine one 8-hr shift a day, the spokesperson says.
Currently, the company has three sets of interchangeable die changeparts,
so it can change the machine over quickly in order to create
"many" differnent pack sizes and shapes. That gives
the plant production flexibility and provides more marketing
appeal, the spokesperson says: "We can produce one large bulk package
or add inserts and make several smaller packs."
Current
output of sausage products alone is an estimated 50,000lb per
week, according to the company. The finished packs are sold under
the company's tradename.
