High-speed shrink sleeve machines for alcobev bottles and cans
At Ipack-Ima in Milan from 3 to 6 May 2022, we had the opportunity to meet up with an interesting family owned company with its headquarters in Milan and factory near the city that makes high-speed shrink sleeving machines for PET and glass bottles and metal cans for foods and beverages. Shrink sleeves are also used for FFS food cups and aerosol cans for personal care and household products.
Shown running at its stand, the machine caught the eye of industry visitors who would stop and marvel at the flexible material sleeves raining down with accurate timing on the bottles moving on a conveyor. The covered bottles would in a normal production situation be conveyed to the heat shrinking tunnel.
In our meeting with Ilaria Zilio the owner of the company and Aldo Troian its senior technical advisor we learned that the Finpac Sleeve machines are often sold through OEMs that may ship an entire dairy line and the shrink sleeve machine as one of the packaging options in an integrated configuration. For instance they are sold in India through KHS India.
Shrink sleeving is a developed science since the shrinkage depends on the quality of the film that is used for the sleeves. Depending on the material whether it be PET, PVC, or OPS and its thickness, generally 40 to 50 microns and the speed of the machine a choice of four different type of shrink tunnels can be integrated with the machine. While PVC is considered the cheapest and best for shrinkage, but is of course not the preferred choice in Europe. Apart from the stability of the material, stability and sustainability need to be taken into account for various markets and applications.
Finpac already has two dairy company customers in India which are KCF and Amul. While KCF has one Finpac machine, Amul has two SHM-MS machines that can run at 500 bottles a minute. These machines are guaranteed by the manufacturer to have a sleeving efficiency of 98% tending toward 99% provided the sleeving materials fall within specifications. Specifications and materials are approved and tested on the machine before shipment. Finpac is currently working on a new sleeving machine for 30 micron materials.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.
The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.
Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.
As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.
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