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UK Bakery Packaging
First of all, what do we mean by bakery? Well, it includes everything from your morning crumpet to your teatime cake treat, to your ‘sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine’ pizza.
Basically, it means anything made using flour which is baked in an oven.
So, it’s quite a wide-ranging product portfolio requiring many different kinds of packaging and packaging machinery.
Flow Pack Wrappers and HFFS
One of the most commonly used packing lines for bakery products will be the Horizontal Form Fill Seal machine or HFFS for short! This is because most bakery products can be pushed along a conveyor belt using paddles into the packing line. And just to throw another name in they are often called flow wrappers.
How does the packing line and packaging work together?
The bakery product to be packed travels horizontally in a continuous motion through the packing line usually pushed by paddles. Packaging film is fed from a reel into the machine and the former guides the material to create a continuous tubular shape around the product. After the product has traveled through the former, the two edges of the packaging material are joined together under the centre of the product. The joined edges of the material are then sealed together in a longitudinal fin. Also known as the back seal.
After the longitudinal seal is formed, the product is transported through rotary sealing/cutting jaws. As the cutting head rotates it simultaneously seals and cuts the front of one package and the back end of another. Also known as the end seals. The discharge conveyor carries the finished package away from the sealing and cutting area for any secondary packing.
Many different types of bakery packaging film can run on these machines.
Some examples are:
- Polypropylene is often used to wrap morning goods which have a short shelf life like breadcakes and muffins
- Barrier coated polypropylene packaging can be used for extended shelf life of biscuits
- Two webs of polypropylene can be laminated to give a stiffer pack and if the pack is being printed the inks are sandwiched between the 2 webs to give a gloss or matt finish and protect the inks
- Laminated packaging films are also used with a PE sealing layer for products needing longer shelf life and maybe gas flushing for example crumpets or long-life pitta and naan breads for a more robust pack
- Polyester can be used when the product will be cooked or kept warm in the packaging as it is the only dual ovenable material. It can also be printed with special inks and can be perforated to allow steam to escape
Bakery packaging and Thermoforming
Another method of packaging bakery products is by thermoformer which is often used for long shelf life.
Another horizontal packing line where 2 reels of film are used, normally of different materials. One forms the base and the second forms the top. Dependent on the film used the base can either be soft or rigid.
How does it work?
The lower or base web is heated to allow it to fill cavities in forming moulds (dies) by using a vacuum. This is also known as ‘drawing’ and the depth of the pack is referred to as the draw depth.
There are usually multiple moulds in one ‘advance’ meaning that for example 3 cavities across and 4 cavities wide allowing 12 packs to be created and sealed in one pass.
These cavities are filled automatically or by hand.
The upper web is applied to the filled pack cavities in the sealing die. The upper and lower webs are sealed hermetically to each other by means of a seal seam. The cross cutting and longitudinal cutting units sever the individual packs from the strip of packs in the web, leaving the skeletal waste (the material surrounding the packs) to be wound up on a separate roller.
Many different types of packaging film can run on these machines.
Some examples of top web are
- PET laminated to PE – EVOH to pack naan breads – also gas flushed for extended shelf life
- OPA laminated to PE – has a higher puncture resistance and so is useful for products likely to be handled a lot or need a stronger transit protection
- Polyester – used when the base is also just polyester so that it seals properly and can still go in the oven
Some examples of base web are
- PA/PE Co-extrusion offers a soft flexible base often used for bakery products as well as vacuum packed meat or cheese
- APET (polyester before it has been moulded) and RPET (recycled polyester) both are polyester and can be used in the oven – they form rigid bases
- APET/PE and RPET/PE form rigid bases and can be sealed to top webs having PE as their inner layer to give a hermetic seal
The bakery market is wide ranging requiring many different packaging solutions. Our engineers are happy to help, especially if they get free samples to take away!