Pac june 2014 de

JUNE 2014 | $10

www.canadianpackaging.com

Brad McKay, Chief Executive Officer, Healthcare Food Services

Rob Brooks, Quality Assurance Manager

Stephane Mutchmore, General Manager, Operations

HOME AND AWAY Foodservice operator uses Eagle eyes to ensure failproof product safety

Publication mail agreement #40069240.

Story on page 12

MOTHER OF INVENTION  Page 18

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UPFRONT

BETTER BY THE DOZEN

SENIOR PUBLISHER Stephen Dean • (416) 510-5198 SDean@canadianpackaging.com EDITOR George Guidoni • (416) 510-5227 GGuidoni@canadianpackaging.com FEATURES EDITOR Andrew Joseph • (416) 510-5228 AJoseph@canadianpackaging.com ART DIRECTOR Stewart Thomas • (416) 442-5600 x3212 SThomas@bizinfogroup.ca PRODUCTION MANAGER Cathy Li • (416) 510-5150 CLi@bizinfogroup.ca CIRCULATION MANAGER Anita Madden • 442-5600 x3596 AMadden@bizinfogroup.ca EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lisa Wichmann • (416) 442-5600 x5101 LWichmann@canadianmanufacturing.com EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Tim Dimopoulos • (416) 510-5100 TDimopoulos@bizinfogroup.ca

BIG MAGAZINES LP Vice-President of Canadian Publishing • Alex Papanou President of Business Information Group • Bruce Creighton

HOW TO REACH US: Canadian Packaging, established 1947, is published monthly by BIG Magazines LP, a division of Glacier BIG Holdings Company Ltd. 80 Valleybrook Drive, North York, ON, M3B 2S9; Tel: (416) 442-5600; Fax (416) 510-5140.

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COVER STORY 12

DISCLAIMER: This publication is for informational purposes only. The content and “expert” advice presented are not intended as a substitute for informed professional engineering advice. You should not act on information contained in this publication without seeking specific advice from qualified engineering professionals. Canadian Packaging accepts no responsibility or liability for claims made for any product or service reported or advertised in this issue.

Canadian Packaging receives unsolicited materials, (including letters to the editor, press releases, promotional items and images) from time to time. Canadian Packaging, its affiliates and assignees may use, reproduce, publish, republish, distribute, store and archive such unsolicited submissions in whole or in part in any form or medium whatsoever, without compensation of any sort.

PRIVACY NOTICE: From time to time we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: Phone: 1-800-668-2374 Fax: 416-442-2191 Email: privacyofficer@businessinformationgroup.ca Mail to: Privacy Office, 80 Valleybrook Drive, North York, ON M3B 2S9 PRINTED IN CANADA PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40069240, ISSN 008-4654 (PRINT), ISSN 1929-6592 (ONLINE) We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage for our publishing activities. Canadian Packaging is indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index by Micromedia Limited. Back copies are available in microform from Macromedia Ltd., 158 Pearl St., Toronto, ON M5H 1L3

Home Comforts By Andrew Joseph

Being a leading local supplier of meals to the healthcare and elderly-care institutions requires Ottawa-based Healthcare Food Services to ensure optimal product safety in its processing and packaging operations by utilizing the best product inspection technologies available in the marketplace.

HOME AND AWAY Rob Brooks, Quality Assurance Manager

Foodservice operator uses

Eagle eyes to ensure Story on page 12

IN THIS ISSUE: AUTOMATE

NOW • PRODUCT SAFETY •

failproof product

Stephane Mutchmore, General Manager, Operations

safety

MOTHER OF INVENTION  PACKAGING FOR

Page 18

FRESHNESS

1

Cover photography by Andrew Alexander

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DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS 3 4 5 6 8 10 34 34

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UPFRONT By George Guidoni NEWSPACK Packaging news roundup.

NOTES & QUOTES Noteworthy industry briefs.

FIRST GLANCE New packaging solutions and technologies.

ECO-PACK NOW All about environmental sustainability. imPACt A monthly insight from PAC, Packaging Consortium.

ANNOUNCEMENTS Company and marketplace updates.

PEOPLE Packaging career moves.

EVENTS Upcoming industry functions.

CHECKOUT By Noelle Stapinsky Joe Public speaks out on packaging hits and misses.

NEXT ISSUE: 2014/2015 BUYERS’ GUIDE

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Brad McKay, Chief Executive Officer, Healthcare Food Services

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JUNE 2014 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

JUNE 2014

| $10 www.canadianpa ckaging.com

agreement #40069240.

VOLUME 67, NO. 6

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being good and wholesome for you after all.

• Protein, no explanation required.

• Energy, trumpeted as “an unstoppable global trend” with virtually no limits to growth.

• Weight Wellness, with what used to be industry-leading weight management products like Slim-Fast down 80 per cent and Nestlé selling off most of its Jenny Craig business because, according to the study’s author Julian Mellentin, “They are based on an understanding of the market that was out-of-date five years ago.”

• Snacking, deftly summed up as “the snackification of everything.”

• Slow Energy, hailed a “new frontier” opened up products with ‘slow release’ or ‘sustained’ energy-boosting properties, such as the Belvita brand breakfast biscuits.

• Sugar, with “the demonization of sugar” showing no signs of easing any time soon.

• Permission to Indulge, which more or less speaks for itself.

• Free From gluten, nuts, eggs, wheat, fructose, yeast, lactose, latex, milk, alcohol… you get the drift.

• Seniors, whereby an aging population is creating exciting new opportunities for science and smaller-based companies.

• Kids’ Nutrition, requiring a skillful blend of communication, indulgences and natural ingredients for any business competing in this space.

Above all, Mellentin advises, don’t take liberties with the lingo.

“If you want to be successful, don’t use the word ‘natural’ on the product,” she says.

“You run the risk of getting bogged down in a regulatory minefield, and there are plenty of other ways of communicating the naturalness of your products without ever using the word natural.”

Naturally, we could not agree more.

Publication mail

JUNE 2014

ith food-andbeverage industry accounting for the biggest share of modern CPG (consumer packaged good) packaging business, staying on top of constantly evolving and everchanging trends in this hugely important market is naturally a key perrequisite for success for any packaging supplier worth its salt.

While this is naturally far easier said than done, trend-watching has become something of a fullf ledged global industry in its own right in recent years—ref lecting the increasingly global nature of the world economy at large.

This globalization of market intelligence is wellref lected in the results of a recently-published study compiled by the U.K.-based market researchers New Nutrition Business, with its highly insightful 12 Key Trend 2014 report suggesting a wealth of thought-provoking, untapped opportunities for forward-thinking suppliers of packaging machinery, materials and services alike.

With many of these trends being inherently interlinked to some degree, some of these observations come off as instances of stating and repeating the obvious, but for the most part, the report provides some useful summertime reading for anyone making their living in today’s increasingly diverse global food basket.

So sans further delay, here are the 12 key trends to keep an eye on: • Naturally Functional foods, often fortified with health-promoting, vitamin-enriched ingredients—along the lines of adding Vitamin D to milk—are the biggest buzz going in industry circles right now, representing an emerging new field in food science at large.

• Dairy 2.0, representing the long-overdue reemergence of milk and milk-based products as actually

FEATURES 18

THE REAL DEAL By George Guidoni Leading Canadian coffee and tea processor is off to a flying start in the soaring single-serve market segment.

24

TIME TO CELEBRATE By George Guidoni Cutting-edge thermoform packaging equipment delivers a big productivity boost for fast-growing Ontario goat cheese processor.

28

RAISE THE BAR Montreal co-packer’s sweet success with packaging automation.

31

UNIVERSAL APPEAL Busy U.K. candy co-packer gets sweet rewards from new inkjet coders.

32

EQUIPPED TO GROW By Pierre Deschamps Quebec meat processor set to carve up a bigger slice of the market pie with robust thermoforming technology.

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NEWSPACK

NEW CANADIAN GIN A DAZZLING FEAST FOR THE SENSES COOL PACKAGE UPDATE While the unrivaled rugged natural beauty of orable f lavor that tastes wonderful all by itself over A SPARKLING SUCCESS our Great White North is something that most ice, or as the base for a cocktail,” Crawford explains.

Canadians would prefer to enjoy from a distance in pictures or on television, getting a little taste of what the Canadian Arctic has to offer for drinking enjoyment is now easily within the reach of Canadian consumers coast-to-coast—thanks to recent launch of the Ungava Canadian Premium Gin brand.

Produced in Quebec by one of the province’s leading distillers and apple cider producers Domaine Pinnacle, the distinctive-tasting, bright-yellow gin—its brand name inspired by the expansive unspoiled region bordering Ungava Bay in northern Quebec—is made from a combination of rare arctic plants and herbs that are harvested by hand during the short summer season and then infused in the spirit.

Marketed as the first authentic all-Canadian gin, the spirit’s unique f lavor and aroma is naturally derived from rare northern botanical ingredients such as Wild Rose Hips, Cloudberry, Crowberry, Arctic Blend and Labrador Tea, according to Domaine Pinnacle president Charles Crawford.

“The unique climate of the Ungava region gives our gin its truly individual personality and mem-

“We’re excited to be able to give more Canadians the opportunity to enjoy it,” says Crawford, adding that the same ingredients also give Ungava Gin its striking bright-yellow color that quickly sets it apart from all other competing gins.

Crawford says the packaging was especially designed to use the gin’s trademark yellow color to full visual effect by shining right through the clear glass of the elegantly-shaped bottles manufactured by Bruni Glass Packaging Inc. in Lachine, Que., with the Toronto-based Deco Labels and Tags Inc. supplying the upscale product labels featuring a sampling of native Canadian lettering and graphics.

“We’re extremely proud of our origins and the cultural heritage of the Ungava region’s aboriginal population,” says Crawford. “We ref lect that in the Inuktitut wording included on our bottles and all of our packaging materials.”

Now distributed right across Canada, the Ungava Gin is currently available in 750-ml bottles and 100-ml single-serve containers, a well as in the one-liter glass containers sold at duty-free shops.

STEAM WHISTLE SCORES A PERFECT 10 WITH THE NEW BEER CARTON DESIGN They make just make one beer and one beer only— albeit exceptionally well—but there’s no limits to the many ways that creative folks at Toronto’s leading craft brewer Steam Whistle Brewing come up with to package their f lagship Steam Whistle Pilsner brand in groundbreaking ways one festive beer-drinking season after another.

This summer, the independent brewer is set to make a big splash in the beer-store aisles with a brand new CAN VAN 10 Pack beer carton that pays homage to the brewer’s groovy vintage workhorse—a 1967 Ford Econoline heavy duty van dubbed ‘The Steam Machine’—containing 10 355-ml cans of the Steam Whistle Pilsner.

According to company co-founder Greg Taylor, the 10-beer format offers beer-lovers a refreshing upgrade from the conventional six- and eightpacks, aided by the intricate new carton design based on the look of their eye-catching Steam Machine beer delivery van, which will be a frequent sight at many of this summer’s upcoming concerts, festivals and other large public events.

“We’re known for doing one thing really, really well and making only one kind of beer, but we’re also known for fun, and this Steam Machine CAN VAN 10 Pack delivers great craft beer and the convenience of cans to put a smile on your face.”

Operating out of Toronto’s historic John St. Roundhouse—a former locomotive repair facility at the foot of the city’s downtown—Steam Whistle is still well-known for the company’s signaturegreen glass bottles, but the company has strongly focused on growing the canning side of its business in recent years in response to changing consumer trends.

According to industry statistics, canned beer has grown from 19 to 45 per cent of the Canadian beer market between 2000 and 2012.

In addition to the highly engaging graphics developed by the Toronto-based Blacksmith Design Co., the CAN VAN 10 Pack features a

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pop-up handle to grip while carrying, and includes a perforated zipper along the van’s back doors to provide easy access to the cans.

While the original idea for a Steam Machine beer carton goes back about a year ago, producing it in a cost-effective manner had to wait until the brewer’s Concord, Ont.-based corrugated supplier Packaging Technologies Inc. (PTI) developed a carton design—a full-color B-Flute corrugated box in the 1967 Ford Econoline van’s likeness with a pop-up handle and tear-tape along the van’s back doors—to ensure quick and cost-effective assembly by the brewery’s Trinamic case-erector.

“PTI has been more than just a supplier, a partner really, to us for more than a decade,” says Steam Whistle’s purchasing director Chris Johnston.

“They always deliver well-made cartons with quality graphics and competitive pricing, but what really differentiates them are the truly innovative and creative solutions they offer on project development.”

Taylor relates that the project team tried a number of CAN VAN sizes—including six-, eight- and 12-can formats—before concluding that a 10-pack would work best from a consumer price-point perspective, while also offering the best canvas for the graphics and ease-of-assembly.

Says Taylor: “We wanted the Steam Machine CAN VAN Pack to incorporate elements we had successfully used in our existing product offerings: attractive graphics, sturdy box construction that lends the feeling of old-fashioned overbuilt quality, the convenient pop-up handle from Steam Whistle’s Suitcase 12-pack and the perforated/ tearaway feature of our 24-pack.

“As always in the past, PTI gave us everything we asked for.”

As the long-awaited summer weather arrives in Canada, one of the country’s leading cooler brands for the past 15 years is hitting liquor store shelves with a tropically inspired-new flavor and a timely packaging update.

Made, mixed and packaged in the U.K. by SHS Drinks Ltd., the new Woody’s Mango & Passionfruit f lavor is a fitting addition to the brand’s existing bestselling Pink Grapefruit and Mexican Lime vodkabased beverages, having just picked up a Silver Award in the 2014 Pre-Mixed Drinks Challenge competition of the Drinks International magazine.

“Canadians have had a really tough winter this year, so we couldn’t be more excited about bringing the refreshing taste of Woody’s to Canadian consumers this summer season,” says SHS Drinks international sales director Steve Whitlock.

Developed by leading British package design experts Bray Leino, the new packaging for both the 330-ml bottles and the four-pack paperboard carriers was designed to showcase the brand’s contemporary, fresh personality and the liquid’s fruity taste, Whitlock explains.

“We had a great opportunity with the new f lavor to bring forward a new color scheme on our packaging for Woody’s drinkers,” Whitlock says, “so we took that time to create a contemporary new feel that makes our brand logo really ‘pop.’

“Brightness, freshness and crispness have always been important to us from a liquid standpoint, and inserting those same values into our new packaging has been an exciting development for the Woody’s brand— positioning it as a real ‘go-to’ refreshment in the fridges and coolers of Canadian consumers,” Whitlock adds.

“Whether you’re drinking it on the dock at the cottage, or using it in punches for picnics and barbecues, Woody’s is an ideal sparking cooler for any occasion.”

HAVE YOUR CAKE AND DRINK IT!

Famous around the world for the creativity he brings to the world of baking on the The Learning Channels (TLC)’s popular TV show Cake Boss, the show’s host Buddy Valastro is about to become even more familiar to Canadian consumers this fall with a national launch of his own range of single-serve coffee K-Cups by the Ottawa-based Single Cup Coffee.

“Whether at home, in my bakery or on the road, I don’t start my morning without a hot cup of coffee,” says Valastro. “I’ve been working with TLC and the coffee pros at Single Cup Coffee to create a variety of coffee f lavors unique to Cake Boss that can satisfy both the sweet tooth and coffee craving,” says Valastro, explaining that each of the line’s eight f lavors was inspired by the taste of his favorite baking creations, including Hazelnut Biscotti, Chocolate Cannoli, Italian Rum Cake and Dulce de Leche.

“Cake Boss coffees offer a fresh take on what we expect from our single-serve coffee lines,” says Single Cup Coffee president Tim Cook, “by bringing in brand new f lavors inspired by the delicious Italian pastries and cakes seen on the show.

CANADIAN PACKAGING • JUNE 2014

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NOTES & QUOTES  Bag packaging machinery manufacturer Premier Tech Chronos of Rivière-du-Loup, Que., reached a new milestone last month with the sale of its 300th FFS Series form/fill/seal bagging machine to Transfobec Mauricie, La Tuque, Que.-based producer of mulch products for agricultural and horticultural applications. Purchased along with a reserve supply and a VF-2300 volumetric feeder, the FFS-200 bagger was purchased to accommodate the production of a new type of specialized mulch, according to Premier Tech Chronos, which adds that the first Transfobec Mauricie plant FFS machine it sold employees (from left) Nicolas back in 1997 is still Potvin, Claude Bronsard and in operation today— Anthony Bronsard in front of having bagged an the newly-installed FFS-200 estimated 1,500 bags bagging machine manufactured of peat per hour since

by Premier Tech Chronos. its installation.  Leading industrial adhesives manufacturer H.B. Fuller Company has commenced operations of the new Packaging Center of Excellence facility at the company’s North American headquarters in St. Paul, Minn. Representing a capital investment of about US$1-million, the new center is intended to enable faster innovation and better customer collaboration to help solve various packaging chal-

lenges and to protect brand products, according to Steve Ringsdore, vice-president of packaging and converting for the Americas region. “This center has been created to drive the industry forward and help customers protect their assets and their brands as well as find new ways to reduce costs,” says Ringsdore, adding the facility is fully-equipped to address the consumers’ varied packaging adhesives needs across a broad range of applications, substrates and environmental conditions. “It also will be used to provide comprehensive training for our technical and sales team so that their market expertise delivers quantifiable value to our customers,” notes Ringsdore, pointing out that customers can work directly with Fuller’s experts to develop customized solutions to speed up their time-tomarket in areas such as end-of-line packaging, container labeling, f lexible packaging, retail-ready packaging, handle and packaging reinforcement, and specialty packaging.

tive officer Jimmy Garfinkle. “With our two corrugated manufacturing plants in the province of Quebec, our manufacturing facility for small quantities, our association with Atlantic Packaging of Toronto and our partnership in the New Forest Paper Mill, we have now positioned ourselves as leaders of the Quebec and the Eastern Canadian packaging markets.”

 Leading U.S. capital investment firms Goldman Sachs and Koch Industries, Inc. have announced formation of a joint venture between their respective subsidiaries, Merchant Banking Division and Koch Equity Development LLC, to acquire 100 per cent of all shares of the globally-operating  Montreal-headquartered corrugated packaging printing and packaging consumables manufacturer producer Mitchel-Lincoln Packaging Ltd. has Flint Group from the U.K.-based CVC Capital completed the acquisition of Induscorr, a divPartners. Headquartered in Luxembourg, Flint ision of Specialized Packaging Group L.P. Group operates 137 facilities in 40 countries to specializing in the manufacturer of triple-wall produce a diverse rage of printing inks and pressand specialty bulk containers (see picture) based in room chemicals, photopolymer printing plates, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que. “By acquiring Induscorr, sleeves and blankets, plate-making equipment and we have expanded our range of services and speother imaging systems widely used in most offset, cialized value-added products to become the supf lexographic and gravure printing applications.

133over x 203 mm,people, CC-en30-AZ020 plier of choice for corrugatedVarioline, cartons inCanadian Quebec,”Packaging, Employing 6,600 Flint Group02/14 genersays Mitchel-Lincoln president and chief execuated US$2.9 billion in revenues last year.

If diversity’s what you’re looking for: the Varioline packaging system from krones. www.krones.com FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE 105

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FIRST GLANCE THE MELTING POINT Developed by Nordson Corporation, the new tankless ProBlue Liberty system is an integrated tankless melter and multi-hose fill system designed to enable packagers to reduce waste, char, downtime and energy consumption on their production lines, according to the company. The high-performance system incorporates a proprietary sensor to monitor molten adhesive levels in a small hopper and to alert the fill system to add the appropriate amount of hot-melt—virtually eliminating char build-up. The f lexible system—fully compatible with all the Nordson Blue Series hoses and applicators, and easy interchangeable with the existing Nordson melters—can feed from one to four melters at the same time, depending on application, achieving significant reductions in the amount of adhesive waste associated with manual filling.

Nordson Canada, Limited

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BAGGING IT IN Designed for pre-made wicketed bags, the new VS Bagger from WeighPack Systems Ltd. is designed as a highly reliable entry-level machine for applications in the baking and produce industries, capable of working with manual loading or as a fully-automated operation. Equally well-suited for working with both polyethylene and laminated materials and a broad range of bag lengths and widths, the VS Bagger can be easily integrated with a twist-tie machine or a horizontal seal to optimize variable available options, including a plunging funnel, bag shaking to settle the product in the bag, a bag support table for heavy bags, and a foot pedal for facilitating semi-automatic operation.

WeighPack Systems Ltd.

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BOXXER IN THE RING The new model BOXXER T-30 automatic case-erector and bottom tape-sealer from Eagle Packaging Machinery LLC is capable of running both regular-slotted and half-slotted style boxes at speeds of up to 30 cases, according to the company, while requiring only one operator to run it. Designed for fast changeover and for handling a very wide range of boxes, the mobile systems offers a broad range of high-performance features such as an Omron programmable logic controller (PLC), a color touchscreen interface, a high-capacity blank hopper, easy-access panels with safety switches, a welded steel frame construction, and a choice of left-hand or right-hand operation for optimal f lexibility and user-friendliness.

Eagle Packaging Machinery LLC

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PREMIER PERFORMANCE The new patent-pending BFW Series open-mouth bagging machine from Premier Tech Chronos incorporates bottom-up filler technology to provide optimal performance for bagging a wide range of

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powder materials in the food and chemical industries—providing ample operational flexibility and speed by being able to handle paper, polyethylene and laminated polywoven bags at rates of up to 10 bags per minute. Incorporating a highly hygienic spout and a high-performance FANUC robots, the machine’s design is exceptionally wellsuited for products like powdered milk, whey protein, flour, bakery mixes and pharmaceutical powders, with its modular-design allowing users to deploy a systems tailorsuited for their current production needs—from semi- to fully-automatic operation.

Premier Tech Chronos

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BAG OF TRICKS Capable of robust throughput speeds of up to 150 cartons per minute, the new MK-BIB bag-inbox autoload cartoner from AFA Systems Inc. is designed for tricky applications involving the insertion of vertical form/fill/seal (VFFS) bags into cartons during the packaging of cereals, milk powder, nutritional supplements and many other types of granular or powdery loose products. Easily integrated with many types of VFFS machinery, the machine receives and transfers its bags on a conveyor to a dual-servo starwheel bucket loading mechanism, where the first starwheel drops them onto the second wheel, which temporarily holds it until it needs to be dropped into the passing bucket below. That bucket then moves on to the barrel cam loading system with overhead confiner for loading into the cartons, which are erected by a servo-driven rotary feeder. Equipped with an Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PLC (programmable logic controller) and servomotors for reliable operation and accurate fault diagnostics, the MK-BIB offers a broad choice of productivity-enhancing options, including laser or inkjet printers, scoop feeders, leaf let feeders, checkweighers, overhead confiners, overhead squaring chains, barcode readers, an extended carton magazine, a pre-break rotary feeder for square cartons, and open-f lap detectors.

AFA Systems Inc.

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FULL 3D EXPERIENCE Engineered to enable real spatial vision capabilities on the company’s TLM (top-loading machine) systems for better pick-and-place performance and quality control, the new 3D scanner from Gerhard Schubert GmbH is designed to ensure fewer rejects, greater production capacity, better quality control, and low raw material costs, according to the company. Positioned over a conveyor belt to determines the three-dimensional data of the products to be handled from that position, the

high-performance TLM vision system can determine the volume and density of the products, while also performing a set-point/actual value comparison for the stack height or stack length in the case of upright placement in the boxes. In addition, the system can prioritize the product pick-up operation, while also detecting overlapping products, to make sure that the TLM system’s robots complete the individual product formation in such a way that its weight lies within the predefined range, as well as providing better detection for products in low-contrast environments.

Based on the stereoscopic approach, whereby the scanner captures two views of each product from different angles, the modular 3D scanner employs multiple color line sensors arranged next to one another at a set distance, with the field-of-view of each color line sensor extends to the optical axis of the two neighboring sensors on the left and right sides to create an accurate height profile to create the corresponding 3D images. Having being tested successfully in the field with a Gerhard Schubert machine at a European baked-goods factory, it also features white-light illumination for capturing color images, which are from the stereo captures without distortion or parallax, according to the company.

Gerhard Schubert GmbH

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JOIN THE PROS Ahearn & Soper Inc. has released a new version of the company’s proVisionWMS, which it says is one of the most f lexible WMS (Warehouse Management System) solution for small- to medium-sized Canadian businesses.

According to the company, the new proVisionWMS V1.9. software will feature new solutions developed in response to extensive feedback from its growing customer base, including important new functionalities such as Save Data Grid View, Integrated Database Utilities, Lot Validation Rules Per Item, Serial Number Validation Rules, New Workf low Task Parameters, a New ‘STAGE’ workf low task, RF shortcuts/RF Printing (radio frequency-based solutions), and Expanded Shipment Processing.

Ahearn & Soper Inc.

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NEXT DIMENSION Claimed to be the world’s first plastic filament for 3D printers enhanced with tribological (low-friction), the new filament material from Igus Inc. is said to be 50 times more resistant to wear and abrasion than conventional 3D printer materials— allowing users to ‘print’ (fabricate) full-size, threedimensional custom bearings and/or other plastic component prototypes for a diverse range of motion control applications. In addition to the super-strong new filament, the company also offers access to 3D models of Igus plastic products in STL format, which can easily be downloaded and used directly as input data for 3D printing.

Igus Inc.

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CANADIAN PACKAGING • JUNE 2014

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What

Happens

When We Don’t Conserve The Earth’s Resources?

Reducing water usage is an important goal for the Beverage Industry around the world. Eliminating water and lubrication from conveyor systems is a proven method of achieving this goal!

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ECO-PACK NOW

CANADIAN PAPER GIANT BETS ON BIG THIRST FOR SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING It’s one thing to develop an environmentallyfriendly packaging solution, but it’s a whole different ball game when it comes to making that product in sufficient commercial quantities to really make a difference in moving the cause of packaging sustainability forward in a major way in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) marketplace.

But after five years of knocking on CPG brandowners’ doors to give its well-received, recycled paper-based eco.bottle containers a chance in mainstream retail markets, Oakland, Ca.-based Ecologic Brands is all set for the next stage of growth, having recently secured a US$7-million investment from several prominent venture capital investors and one of Canada’s leading forest paper products manufacturers.

For the Montreal-headquartered Kruger Inc., well-known producer of the bestselling paper tissue brands Scotties, Purex and Cashmere, helping the f ledgling startup to spread its wings by leveraging Kruger’s formidable manufacturing, financial and marketing clout makes perfect strategic sense, according to Michael Lafave, Kruger’s senior vice-president of containerboard/packaging and recycling.

“We are especially excited to bring the Ecologic paper bottle technology to our customers in the Canadian market as an additional offering to complement our corrugated packaging solutions,” says Lafave, citing Kruger’s extensive experience in pulp-and-paper products, containerboard, packaging and recycling stretching back for over 100 years.

Made with Ecologic’s patented molded fiber technology, the eco.bottle made its commercial debut in 2011, with the Burlington, Vt.based household products manufacturer Seventh Generation Inc. becoming the first North American company to package its powder laundry detergents in the eco.bottle container—featuring a fully recyclable and compostable outer shell made from 70-percent recycled cardboard fibers and 30-percent old newspaper fibers, supporting a recyclable lightweight plastic pouch inside.

Quick to Grow Since that successful and widely-lauded launch, Ecologic has gone on to manufacture and ship millions of eco.bottle containers to 15 brand partners around the world, according to the company’s Canadian-born founder Julie Corbett, now serving as Ecologic’s CCO (chief commercial officer).

“By bringing the paper eco.bottle into markets that have been traditionally dominated by plastics, our partnership with Kruger will help us revolutionize the bottling business with one of the most renewable and recyclable resources—paper,” say Corbett, citing Kruger’s extensive manufacturing capabilities and vast market reach.

With market demand far exceeding its manufacturing capacity, Ecologic started up its own manufacturing facility in Manteca, Ca., while also looking for suitable business partners to ensure a

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steady supply of eco.bottles and other similar moldedfiber packaging products for the fast-growing customer base.

Under the partnership arrangement with Kruger, the company’s Krupack Inc. packaging business will own exclusive Canadian manufacturing Ira Maroofian, CEO, and distribution rights for Ecologic Brands the eco.bottle range of containers, which it expects to start manufacturing in Canada by the end of next year.

“In a perfect world, we aim to start the manufacture of eco.bottles in Canada in the fourth quarter of next year,” says Krupack’s director of business development Rick Rourke.

“We obviously need to build a critical mass before going forward on a large scale, but we have been in contact with many interested potential customers in Canada for the last year-and-a-half with this project, and we have concluded that there are plenty of opportunities in the marketplace to expand the use of this highly sustainable form of packaging.

“We really like the product and we strongly believe in Julie and her team,” says Rourke, noting that Kruger’s owner Joseph Kruger became a fan of the eco.bottle tech-

nology since reading an article about Julie Corbett in Montreal’s daily newspaper The Gazette.

“There’s obviously an interesting connection there on a personal level,” Rourke acknowledges, “but the key thing for Kruger is that Julie’s idea naturally fits so well with our own core values, synergies and expertise in the recycled paper business.

“We have been in the paper recycling and recovery business for a long time,” says Rourke, adding that Kruger is also actively involved in the renewable energy business as an operator of two wind farms in Ontario and one in Quebec.

With the company’s interest in the wines business through its Kruger Wine and Spirits division, Rourke says he is not surprised to see some progressive North American winemakers switching over to eco.bottle packaging to reduce the carbon footprint of their products and operations.

“There are many environmental advantages to this bottle compared to glass,” Rourke told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview.

“The truth is that glass packaging is not as environmentally-friendly as some people in the

glass industry claim it is,” Rourke points out.

“There are much higher energy costs incurred in the manufacture of glass packaging, big costs in transporting the heavyweight glass containers, and broken glass is also a source of many headaches Julie Corbett, Founder, in the operating of recycEcologic Brands ling streams,” Rourke says.

“So not only is the eco.bottle easily recyclable, the container is made from 100-percent recycled OCCs (old corrugated containers) and newsprint, while the inside plastic pouch or bag use to keep the product coming into contact with the recycled fiber is typically made from materials that can go into most recycling streams out there,” he says.

Bigger Vision “This partnership with Ecologic works perfectly well with our own vision of closing the loop with packaging waste,” says Rourke, citing the success of the in-store recycling programs at retail giant Safeway’s stores in California, where eco.bottle packaging can be returned by consumers right on the store premises—to be quickly collected and remade into new paper products.

Noting that major Canadian retail chains like Loblaws and Canadian Tire already sell a number of products packaged in eco. bottle containers, Rourke says this instore “closed-loop’ recycling model can be very feasible for the Canadian marketplace.

“We are certainly looking at developing something like this in Canada down the road if we can get the right partners to work with us,” Rourke says. “We already have a recycling rate of 85 to 90 per cent for corrugated products in Canada, so this could be another one of those synergies that our partnership with Ecologic enables us to pursue.”

Aside from wine and detergents, the eco.bottle is also gaining a big presence in the market for protein mixes and similar nutritional supplements, according to Rourke.

“Basically any non-carbonated product that currently goes into a rigid-plastic container can be packaged in this bottle at a significantly lesser cost and with significant environment benefits,” says Rourke, noting that the recycling rate in Canada for rigid plastic containers is only about 25 per cent.

“We know that Ecologic is also currently working to develop a special plastic liner for these bottles that can eliminate the use of the inside pouch down the road,” he says, “which would be a very big stepping stone in the evolution of this packaging —opening up its use to a whole new range of non-food products,” Rourke states.

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ECO-PACK NOW

“The paper bottle clearly offers brand-owners significant product differentiation on the shelf,” says Rourke, citing the success of Seventh Generation detergents and the recent launch of premium wines packaged in PaperBoy bottles (picture on right) by a popular California winery Truett-Hurst Inc. “It is a very f lexible technology that can be easily molded in different forms and shapes to suit a broad range of everyday consumer products,” Rourke asserts.

“We really think that being able to offer this packaging to the Canadian marketplace can be a major game-changer for Kruger.”

Such endorsement is naturally music the ears of Ecologic’s recently-appointed new chief execu-

tive officer Ira Maroofian.

“We want to build this company with great products, people and partners,” Maroofian says, “and the Kruger team brings all of that to the table by truly legitimizing Ecologic as a packaging company with real staying power.”

Adds Rourke: “Ecologic has done very well with their eco.bottle on their own so far, but they have been looking for a while to find the right manufacturing partner with solid expertise in the paper business.

“They really want to focus on the marketing and selling of their paper bottle products and leave the bulk of manufacturing to the experts, and given our long experience in recycling, pulping and papermaking, this is a partnership that

Made from molded recycled fibers, the PaperBoy wine bottles are 85-percent lighter than their glass cousins.

can blossom with the many synergies we bring to the table to make it a real win-win for everyone involved, including the environment.”

MADE OF STRAW

As the world’s largest wheat producer, China is also the largest producer of agricultural waste straw, with more than 90 per cent of it simply burned off or dumped into rivers after the grain harvest. With this waste said to be one of the major causes of China’s infamous air pollution, the country’s leading corrugated producer YFYJupiter may well be onto something big with its new Npulp molded pulp packaging made from wheat straw.

Fittingly, the innovative product has just picked up the Silver prize in 2014 Edison Awards— an international competition honoring the world’s most innovative new products, services and business leaders—in recognition of its unique manufacturing process that consumes far less energy and water than traditional pulping, while eliminating harsh chemicals used in conventional papermaking.

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“The only ingredients in Npulp are straw, steam and an enzyme we developed to digest the straw into pulp,” says YFYJupiter president Ron Allen, adding the company has just started up a new mill in Yangzhou, dedicated to the production of pulp made entirely from waste straw, with daily production capacity of about 1,000 tonnes.

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All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. www.schneider-electric.com • 998-1207451_CA-GB_Note3

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The vital partner and catalyst ACCESS THE GLOBAL PACKAGING NETWORK for the packaging value chain

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The objective of A Day in the Life (of a packaged product) symposium is to enlighten participants on the trends in retail, the impact on the packaging supply chain and consumer engagement; educate on collaboration and sustainable design life-cycle thinking for packaged goods; feature and celebrate creativity and disruptive innovation; and share emerging next life value-added solutions for packaging waste.

The audience will be taken on a creative journey in A Day in the Life of an imaginary nutritional drink packaged product. Each great day of business content will be followed by outstanding networking opportunities. The event is designed to provide attendees the option of participating in one, two or all three days activities.

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CANADIAN PACKAGING • JUNE 2014

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Founded 1950

Sept. 30, Oct. 1 & 2, 2014 Program Agenda

Speakers

September 30 – 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

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• Keynote Panel - Retail Trends, the impact on the supply chain and consumers • Demonstrating a collaborative lifecycle thinking process to achieve sustainable package design Networking Reception, Food & Beverage: Steam Whistle Brewery & patio Tour Ripley’s Aquarium across the street from Steam Whistle

Eric Ashworth

Karen Bandhauer

Bromlyn Bethune

Alan Blake

Ron Davis

Tevfik Djmagouz

October 1 – 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Steam Whistle Brewery: Registration opens. Brewery tours ongoing.

• The Steam Whistle Story • Innovative Packaging and Process Competition - 12 creative presentations audience selects 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place • Luncheon Keynote - “Dramatic Simplicity” - Ron Davis, President and Mark Roberts, Vice President of Davis Group • Individual package presentations from industry experts based on optimization, performance and cost, food security.

• Student Design Competition - branding and in-store marketing presentations.

Panelists include leaders from Anthem/Schawk, Davis and SGS Int’l. Audience picks winners.

Real Sports Bar & Grill: Networking and hockey game on the big screen (possible Leaf home opener) - Food & Beverage October 2 – 7:30 a.m. to Noon Real Sports Bar & Grill: Registration & breakfast opens at 7:30am • Breakfast Keynote - “Waste, What Waste?” - Tom Szaky, Founder of Terracycle • Waste Management Best Practices • Next Life Solutions Innovators

INTERACTION, COLLABORATION, CELEBRATION Register online at pac.ca

Jim Downham

Karina Espinel

Dave Gordon

Ryan L’Abbé

Al Metauro

Jennifer Murtell

Krishna Nadella

Yasmin Siddiqi

Tom Szaky

Allen Langdon

Dan Lantz

Jon Pietsch

Donna Razik

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PACK AGING CONSORTIUM

Darko Martinovic

Mark Roberts

Vincent Sferrazza

JUNE 2013 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

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Liberatore Trombetta

Paul Yang

WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 11

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COVER STORY

Brad McKay, Chief Executive Officer, Healthcare Food Services

Rob Brooks, Quality Assurance Manager Stephane Mutchmore, General Manager, Operations

HOME COOKING

Ontario food processor cooks up high-quality meals for healthcare facility residents ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR PHOTOS BY ANDREW ALEXANDER

T

here’s an old time-tested adage that one can tell plenty about a civilization by the way it treats its sick and elderly.

This wisdom carries even more weight in modern-day Canada, as it is estimated that the so-called Baby Boomer generation that appeared at the conclusion of WWII will, by the year 2015, be senior citizens aged 65 years or older, a point only made troubling by the fact that it is predicted that these elder statesmen will actually outnumber Canada’ youth population aged 14 years of age or younger.

It is thought that by the year 2036, approximately 25 per cent of Canada’s population will be categorized as senior citizens.

Like it or not, there is no escaping the fact that Canada is getting older.

Of course, the silver lining should be the fact that

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Canadians are living longer due to better overall health, work and living conditions, medicines and even food, though personal choices often play a discriminating role in determining one’s health status and longevity.

Even so, the odds are high that no matter what a person does—regardless of age, sex or creed—there’s a higher likelihood of them having to utilize the services of a hospital to have some illness or debilitation taken care of by healthcare professionals.

Golden Age And even after making it to the golden years, many a senior citizen eventually comes to the conclusion that running their own household is not as much fun as it used to be, and seeks out habitation in a residential care facility where a full-time, on-premises staff ensures its residents are well looked after.

For those requiring a hospital stay and those utilizing the long-term residential care facilities, the

need for healthy and nutritious foods is of paramount importance.

And yet, this notion doesn’t always get the respect it deserves.

For many a generation, the term ‘hospital food’ has been a long-standing joke describing some variation of an unappetizing gelatinous mass of greyness that is slopped down in front of a patient.

This shortcoming has prompted many catcalls about how the lack of good food is what drives patients to want to get healthier quicker—to avoid having to choke down any more blandness than they have to.

While that description may be exaggerated, there was—in the past—a modicum of truth to it; a fact that today’s more savvy healthcare facility administrators are all too aware of and eager to make part of the industry’s past.

Taking the reins and leading the way is the food processing business known as Healthcare Food Services (HFS).

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COVER STORY Headquartered in the Orleans area of the nation’s capital of Ottawa, HFS is a well-known and respected by healthcare facility administrators as well as a leading expert in the healthcare food industry.

“We offer varied and balanced meals for the people requiring healthcare,” HFS chief executive officer Brad McKay told Canadian Packaging during a recent interview.

“But we ensure that every meal we create is also nutritious and economical.

“It’s all about f lexibility and choice,” he adds.

More than simply a food processor, McKay says that HFS is a company that was created specifically to cater to the needs of the healthcare industry, noting that “our roots are in healthcare.”

Founded in 1980, HFS was the brainchild of four Ottawa hospitals who wanted to ensure that its patients received a set menu of foods that would provide consumers with eating pleasure during a difficult or stressful time in their lives.

Working out of a 45,000-square-foot production plant, HFS was originally restricted to just serving the Ontario market, actually reached full production capacity in 1999.

But perhaps tired of running at capacity and noting that more and more healthcare facilities were practically begging them to produce food for them, in 2003 HFS took the plunge and constructed a spacious, state-of-the-art, 75,000-square-foot processing and packaging facility, which is 100 per cent nut-free, Halal-certified and HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point)-accredited.

Federal Case The new facility is federally-regulated as a CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency)-inspected plant that allows HFS and its 120 employees to produce and ship foods right across Canada.

No longer limited to only making foods for hospital patients, it has robustly expanded into longterm residential care facilities.

“We go coast-to-coast-to-coast, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and all the way north to Baffin Island,” reveals HFS general manager of operations Stephane Mutchmore, adding that while 20 per cent of the company’s business still remains in the Ottawa area, the remaining 80 per cent of its meals are shipped all over Canada.

Thanks to a satisfied customer base, HFS has grown far beyond providing foods for the four parent hospitals in the Ottawa area, now providing millions of meals a year—or, in Mutchmore’s

Purchased via PLAN Automation, the easy-to-operate Eagle Pack 430 Pro X-Ray system from Eagle Product Inspection ensures effective product quality control.

words, “the equivalent of one day’s production would feed one person their dinner for a lifetime.”

By market share, HFS is the Number One dedicated food healthcare manufacturing company in Canada—the key word being ‘dedicated’.

“We do not produce food for any other entity other than healthcare facilities,” says Mutchmore.

“We offer a complete menu of single-meal and bulk-meal options, but we are much more than a food processor.

“We see ourselves as a partner who offers our

With help from PLAN Automation, HFS purchased an optional product rejection system featuring Festo pneumatics for its Eagle Pack 430 Pro X-Ray unit to help provide greater production line efficiency at its Ottawa-based food processing and packaging facility.

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customers more than a list of menu items—we do benchmarking surveys to see how we can best serve not only our healthcare clients, but their patients too,” he explains.

“We will help create a menu that works according to regional and demographic requirements to ensure customer and consumer satisfaction.”

The HFS operation provides what it calls two specific varieties of food items, with 85-per cent frozen, and the remaining 15 per cent chilled, which Mutchmore says is done mostly for transportation purposes.

Running its production 24-hours-a-day, including daily sanitation, HFS produces over 500 SKUs

HFS prepares millions of meals a year for the healthcare service industry at its 75,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art processing and packaging nut-free and HACCPcertified facility in Ottawa.

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COVER STORY

A custom-manufactured Label-Aire application system purchased via Ahearn & Soper prints and applies labels with fully-detailed product data onto shipping cartons.

(stock-keeping units), and as Mutchmore notes, it’s often more than simple size variations of products.

“We actually offer a standard size for most of our products, though each is available as a single meal item or in bulk format, pre-portioned or not, as required,” explains Mutchmore.

“But we also provide modified textures of our products to help consumers who have dysphagia, a condition causing people to suffer extreme difficulty in swallowing foods and liquids.”

Mutchmore says HFS has developed a series of texture-modified foods in three formats: puréed, minced and thickened-liquids, which vary according to viscosity or particle size.

“Regardless of the food or texture, HFS ensures that every product is made with only top-quality, natural, nutritious and f lavorful ingredients,” Mutchmore states.

Other special diets offered include: ‘energy-controlled’ for those who need to control their bloodsugar levels; low-sodium, where HFS adjusts spices and seasonings to ensure good f lavor; ‘vegetarian’ entrées, soups and sauces that can be made—and

coded for ease of consumer distribution—including meatless options without egg or dairy or sans animal protein whatsoever.

HFS produces a diverse list of food products where it considers great taste to be an equal partner of dietary requirements as set up by a facility dietician. These varied product offerings comprise: • Breakfasts, offering foods in the continental style or in the classic hot manner; • Soups that are Ready-to-serve, requiring nothing to add, mix or dilute, and are conveniently rethermable; • Salads featuring pre-washed and peeled top-grade vegetables, which can be prepared to serve alone as a meal or as a compliment to lunch or dinner; • Sandwiches, which HFS offers with the option of having wrapped in food-safe packaging to provide freshness and to avoid any possible handling-related contamination; • Over 100 entrées featuring beef, poultry, pork, fish and seafood, pastas and meatless all prepared according to regional or cultural food preferences, are preservative-free, and use no artificial flavoring; • Sauces and gravies made from scratch via nonpowdered mixes made homestyle with real meats and vegetables. These products are prepared as-is—thaw-and-serve—or so that a facility cooking staff may modify it to create a signature sauce or gravy suited to the specific taste and dietary profile of the establishment.

• Starches and side-dishes—including pasta, rice or potatoes—all prepared so staff can serve easily; • Portion-controlled desserts that are all made nutfree and available in a range of low-fat and lowsodium varieties.

• A diverse line of bakery items.

Party Line With such a huge line-up of menu items, HFS employs eight different packaging lines: a pumping line, chill, sandwich, bakery, individual meals, portioning line, manual assembly, and slicing.

“Because we are a not-for-profit company, any surpluses are reinvested into the facility to ensure we always have the best production equipment and a smoother and more efficient production line,” explains McKay. A very recent addition to HFS’s capital expenditure is a new Eagle Pack 430 Pro X-Ray food inspection system manufactured by Eagle Product Inspection of Tampa, Fla., but purchased through Canadian packaging system integrators PLAN

A HFS employee carefully prepares a pallet load of packaged food items on an end-ofline automatic stretchwrapper, manufactured by Orion Packaging Systems, to prevent product shifting during transport to healthcare facilities across Canada.

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Automation.

According to HFS quality assurance manager Rob Brooks, the processor was keen on improving its food safety within its production line and specifically wanted to purchase an X-Ray system, deciding a metal detection unit alone would not be able to effectively handle the metal-based packaging used for such items as lasagna.

“Armed with the knowledge that we wanted to purchase an X-Ray system, we visited a packaging trade show, and met up with the folks of PLAN Automation, who were showcasing the Eagle Pack 430 Pro system on behalf of Eagle,” explains Brooks.

Along with being the official Canadian supplier of Eagle Product Inspection X-Ray equipment, PLAN Automation also has an office relatively close to HFS, which was a keen selling point for Brooks.

According to PLAN Automation food safety and product inspection specialist Mat Bédard, “Working with HFS has been a very pleasurable experience right from the very beginning.”

Bédard says that although HFS was quite keen on having an X-Ray system in their production line, they didn’t know much about the Eagle Pack 430 Pro at first.

“In our meetings with them prior to the purchase, we walked HFS through the technology and then we actually asked them to join us at a testing facility in Toronto, where they could see the full ramifications of the Eagle Pack 430 Pro system and how it can provide an extra level of food safety to their program,” explains Bédard.

Brooks recalls, “We were excited by just how sensitive the Eagle system was over some of the other technologies we had seen.”

Bédard says he was actually quite impressed by the thoroughness of HFS, because even after seeing the system, they still wanted to ensure the proof was in the pudding, contacting all of the references PLAN Automation had provided to talk to other Eagle X-Ray system users.

Armed with rave reviews, HFS purchased the Eagle Pack 430 Pro X-Ray system and after installing it in the summer of 2013, was treated to a thorough training session that showed them how to get the most out of their new food safety machine.

Some features of the Eagle Pack 430 Pro X-Ray system include: • High-speed imaging capabilities at a rate of up to 120 meters per minute (400 feet per minute); • State-of-the-art, proprietary SimulTask imaging processing software and user interface with improved

After packing its high-quality, tasty food items for healthcare facilities in corrugated cartons supplied by Loeb Packaging, the cartons are placed upon the signature-blue pallets, manufactured by CHEP and widely used in its pooling program.

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COVER STORY Sealed bulk packs of pork gravy (left) and puréed squash (right) are cooled down in a chilly 2°C cold water bath.

algorithms for cutting-edge image analysis; • A software-enabled ‘auto learn’ function as well as a dynamic belt-speed adjustment that simplifies system set-up to save valuable production time and money; • Compact footprint, even though HFS wanted a machine large enough to handle bulk-sized SKUs; • Tool-less belt removal; • HACCP-ready with full event and contaminant logging.

As a special option on the Eagle Pack 430 Pro HFS also requested a high-performance reject system featuring pneumatics supplied by Festo.

The Eagle Pack 430 Pro is constructed with glassReiser_GroundBeefPackagingAd_v2014_CP_Reiser beaded stainless steel with a roll-out conveyor, featuring conveyor belting constructed from a seamless impregnated, polyester fiber underside and a white urethane topface coating formulated to handle a wide product range of temperatures from -30°C to 100°C (-22°F to 212°F).

“PLAN was very amiable in helping us with any after-training questions we had,” notes Brooks, “getting us whatever help we needed right away.”

Adds Bédard, “Simply because we are talking about cabinet X-Ray equipment, the federal and provincial governments require a lot of paperwork to be filed, and that is something we did for HFS well in advance of the delivery of the system to their facility.”

12/24/13 12:53 PM Page 1

Critical Input Some of the other critical packaging equipment employed at the HFS facility includes: • an Optiform V/G automatic thermoformer, manufactured by Italian manufactures Ilpra Spa, designed for preparation of rigid containers; • plastic transparent film for the thermoformer supplied by Winpack; • three Markem-Imaje inkjet printers to add lot-code and product identification data to the plastic film packaging; • one model TUF-10-25-C bag filler from Tucs Equipment Inc., which supplies the chilled tanks and the inline conveyor used to move packed items from the pump to the chilled tanks; • a Bell-Mark EasyPrint S32 direct thermal-transfer printer placed upon the Tucs bag filler; • aluminum trays and lids—all lidded by hand—supplied by Novelis, Inc. • An Ilpra 1400N tray-sealer is used for plastic trays and bowls, utilizing lidding film rather than a plastic dome to provide ease-of-use for the healthcare facility during meal preparation; • corrugated cartons supplied by Ottawa-based Loeb Packaging Limited; • while every carton is hand-packed, HFS uses a Bel 505 case-erector and a Bel 252 carton-sealer, both

JUNE 2014

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2014

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COVER STORY

A Mettler Toledo SpeedWeigh (left) is used to ensure accurate portion control before moving to an Ilpra 1400N tray-sealer, using lidding film supplied by Winpack.

manufactured by Wexxar/BEL, a Pro Mach Industries division; • a custom-built Label-Aire print-and-apply label application system from Ahearn & Soper Inc., a high-performance system that applies labels to the outer side wall of the sealed corrugated cartons delineating product identification in both French and English-languages, product code, lot code, expiry date, case pack number, ingredients and allergen information listed, and a scanable barcode; • pallets for transportation supplied by CHEP; • pallet-load stretchwrapper manufactured by Orion Packaging Systems; • a Universal1000i food depositer and filling machine from Delta, B.C.-based Unifiller Systems; • a Mettler Toledo SpeedWeigh weigher to ensure accurate and consistent meal portion control.

Brooks is adamant that food safety is extremely important to HFS, and not merely with its X-Ray system or the way it maintains a clean processing HFS uses a Universal1000i food depositer and filler and production line area. manufactured by Unifiller Systems to ensure accurate “We generally serve an immune-compromised placement of food items into plastic trays. customer base,” explains Brooks, “so we possess a strong focus on good sanitation and good manufacturing practices to avoid pathogenic and allergenic contamination and cross-contamination.

“We cannot compromise patient safety on our part, so all of our employees watch themselves and each other to ensure we maintain that extremely high-level of food safety,” Brooks states.

From ensuring no employee brings outside food into the production area, to checking After hand-packing the cartons of food items, Healthcare Food Services uses a highthat no lock of hair performance BEL 252 automatic case-sealer equipped with unique Snap Folder caescapes a hairnet, to pabilities, manufactured by the Wexxar/BEL division of Pro Mach Industries. verifying no sewn-in

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pockets are worn in case a loose thread falls into the food, HFS is intent on taking food safety to a new level, by removing the risk of any foreign, biological and chemical contaminants into its production line area.

Despite HFS being a leader in the market segment, Mutchmore acknowledges that it is rapidly becoming a highly competitive business, with some retail food processors crossing over into the institutional food preparation segment—including some of the biggest food processors in Canada.

“We are now just one of 17 players selling lasagna, for example, to facilities within the healthcare market segment,” reveals Mutchmore.

“And it’s more than just lasagna,” he points out.

“Every single category we serve has a major competitor vying for market share also.

“Healthcare facilities should want to work with HFS because we have healthcare in our DNA,” he asserts, “and as specialists in our market, we know our business.”

Mutchmore agrees that in the past some people may have had a negative perception of hospital food.

“But nothing could be farther from the truth,” he states.

“Even though healthcare facilities follow strict nutritional guidelines and dietary practice,” he concludes.

“HFS can easily satisfy those concerns while ensuring the old image remains a thing of the past, as we continue to provide high-quality healthy foods with a high-quality taste.”

For More Information: PLAN Automation Eagle Product Inspection Festo Canada Ilpra Spa Winpack Ltd. Markem-Imaje Tucs Equipment Inc. Bell-Mark Corporation Novelis, Inc. Loeb Packaging Limited Wexxar/BEL, Pro Mach Industries Label-Aire Ahearn & Soper Inc. CHEP Orion Packaging Systems, LLC Unifiller Systems Mettler-Toledo International Inc.

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CANADIAN PACKAGING • JUNE 2014

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Horizontal Flow Wrapping Experience the Bosch Advantage

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The manufacturer’s optimization of their standard machine to your application is critical to your success. That optimization is based on their experience wrapping products with similar characteristics to yours and testing with your actual product. No company has more flow wrapping experience across a broad range of industries to draw upon than Bosch.

Our associates work with you to understand your operation and run tests using your product. They combine this with our unrivaled experience to deliver the most cost-effective wrapping solution, ideally suited to your product and environment.

needed changes. Changeover parts are replaced or adjusted within minutes without tools. Outstanding accessibility and a streamlined and sanitary design make the machine easy to clean.

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Bosch Packaging Technology, Inc. Tel: 715-249-6511 sales.packaging-nrd@bosch.com www.boschpackaging.com

Cartoning of Flow Wrapped Products

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

CAN’T BEAT THE REAL DEAL! Iconic Canadian tea and coffee stalwart makes a quick leap into the single-serve capsule format with cutting-edge packaging innovation and execution

BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY COLE GARSIDE

B

eing in control of one’s own destiny is a great competitive advantage in any line of work.

Especially when that work entails steering a venerable, thriving manufacturing enterprise through an exceptionally competitive, crowded, pricesensitive, and technologically-driven industry such as the North American market for tea and coffee: the world’s two most enduringly popular hot beverages boasting unrivaled historical, cultural, social and culinary importance for vast majority of the world’s population.

With both coffee and tea providing a source of livelihood and trade for countless ranks of growers, producers, processors, marketers and vendors all over the globe since ancient times, the commercial significance of both mass-harvested crops has been the driving force behind some of mankind’s most epic voyages of discovery, conquest and innovation—leaving behind a rich historical legacy proudly carried on at an astounding breathtaking pace in modern days by companies such as Canada’s own Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Inc., headquartered in Mississauga, Ont. Founded over a century ago in 1912 as a wholesale grocery distributor under the original name of Higgins & Burke Ltd., the venerable Canadian coffee and tea giant is today owned by the thirdgeneration of the Higgins family, brothers Paul Jr. and Michael.

The company’s enduring success offers compelling proof that the timeless virtues of strong work ethic, sharp business acumen, and keen understanding of customer needs and market trends are every bit as relevant in the 21st Century packaged foods sector as they have ever been, if not more so.

Sourcing its raw coffee beans and tea leaves from about 30 countries around the world, Mother Parkers’ vast manufacturing operations in Mississauga, along with a tea-processing plant in Ajax, Ont., and a coffee manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Tex., also provide a textbook case of leveraging the synergies of a well-executed vertical integration business model to drive relentless product innovation—a priceless commodity in today’s consumer markets— firmly backed up by progressive and proactive management and corporate culture.

Home Brew “We are very fortunate, as a Canadian company, to have owners that have the courage to make investments that allow us to innovate and bring product to market faster than anybody else in this space,” says Liberatore Trombetta, Mother Parkers’ director of innovation and technology.

“Innovation is what’s going to make the difference for companies competing in this market today,” Trombetta told Canadian Packaging on a recent tour of the company’s rapidly expanding manufacturing operation dedicated to production of single-serve hot-beverage capsules (often generically referred to

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Standing from Left: Dr. Yucheng Fu; product engineering manager; Jeffrey Zietlow, director of marketing; Bill VandenBygaart, vice-president of business development; Liberatore Trombetta, director of innovation and technology; Dennis Paynter, vice-president of coffee operations; Stephen Leung, plant manager of capsules operations.

Sitting: Paul Yang, packaging development and sustainability manager and Shelby Parkinson, analytical lab technician.

Retailing in decorative paperboard boxes supplied by Boehmer Box, the recyclable EcoCup capsules are already used to package some loose-leaf tea blends.

as K-Cups), which are breaking new ground in the company’s product development process.

“Very seldom in Canada do you see CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry owners with such a commitment to winning in the markets where we choose to compete,” Trombetta adds.

Occupied by Mother Parkers since the spring of 2008, the modern 320,000-square-foot complex houses the company’s RealCup brand single-serve capsule production, coffee roasting and warehouse space. It is home not only to some of the most technologically cutting-edge production and packaging equipment anywhere in the global coffee and tea markets, but also a highly dedicated, talented and skilled workforce that lives and breathes innovation every shift, according to the capsule plant’s operations manager Stephen Leung.

“We have grown tremendously in the last two years—not only on the equipment side but also on the personnel side,” Leung relates.

“We went from a total of eight people in the beginning to 74 manufacturing staff and over 100 people on-site today.

“They come from all kinds of different industries—consumer packaged goods, automotive, petroleum, information technology, etc.—with different cultures and backgrounds that enhance our problem-solving abilities, bringing together all the different parts of the puzzle, as it were,” Leung explains.

Fuller Cup “We anticipate to have close to 90 full-time production staff by the end of the year at this facility,” adds vice-president of coffee operations Dennis Paynter, citing good availability of high-quality applicants in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) region that come with solid education backgrounds and relevant food industry experience.

“We probably go through 200 applications, on average, for each new person that we hire,” Paynter explains. “We want to make sure we have people that fit the working culture we’ve created here, that we have the right group of employees to suit this high-tech environment and to grow the business.”

Leung concurs: “Our culture was purposefully developed right from the get-go, so raw talent and attitude fit are very important requirements for

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

One of the plant’s high-performance roasters used to cook whole raw coffee beans for 10 to 15 minutes prior to grinding and further processing.

Custom-manufactured by renowned Italian packaging equipment manufacturer IMA to meet Mother Parkers’ exact specifications and application requirements, the fully-integrated capsule packaging lines enable the Mississauga facility to process hundreds of millions of RealCup single-serving capsules annually to meet growing market demand.

people to work in a highly dynamic, intellectually challenging, and a very fast-paced environment like ours.

“All of the training we do is operator-led, and all of the quality is operator-owned,” Leung states.

“We give our operators as much ownership of their department as much as possible in everything we do, but we also charge them with finding solutions to whatever problems they may be having today or those that they see coming up in the future.

“That’s because we are highly competitive and hungry to win,” says Leung, crediting the company’s fast-paced workplace culture for enabling the new facility to have launched more than 130 new SKUs (stock-keeping units) in the last 12 months, while also developing new processes to improve product quality and process efficiency.

“We’re a highly f lexible plant that is capable of running a large assortment of products,” Leung relates, stressing the importance of the company’s state-of-the-art, vertically-integrated operation for the capsule plant’s rapid growth and success.

“We roast the coffee, grind it, make the capsules and fill them here all under one roof, which helps us ensure maximum freshness,” Leung points out.

“We sincerely believe we have the most advanced

manufacturing technology in tea and coffee packaging anywhere,” Leung asserts, praising the company’s sophisticated, internally-developed MES (Manufacturing Execution System) software platform that makes the whole operation tick like clockwork—from initial grinding and blending through all the diverse packaging stages and on to distribution.

Naturally, time is a precious commodity for a business that, according to Paynter, runs a threeshift, 24-hour operation—with weekends thrown in when necessary—to keep up with soaring market demand for tea and coffee packaged in the RealCup brand of single-serve capsules, developed in-house within an exceptionally brief time-frame of less than two years.

Rapid Pace

“The business has grown at an incredible pace— going from an added-on business, almost a hobby, into a true core competency,” Trombetta enthuses.

“So being very much a technology-driven business, it’s not our intention to do this as just another ‘me too’ capsule operation—we really want to lead the market in this [single-serving] space,” Trombetta expands.

“A lot of the equipment on the plant f loor never existed before—it was all developed with a big input from our team in all the design phases, and made specifically for us,” says Trombetta, noting that the RealCup brand name for the company’s proprietary capsules was also created internally.

“We developed the RealCup brand name to ref lect our focus on authenticity and quality—especially in this very competitive singleEach of the high-speed capsule lines features two Markem-Imaje laser coders to apply serve coffee space.” permanent lot and date codes onto the sides of each RealCup. “I think the RealCup

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Any fumes generated by the Markem-Imaje model 7031 laser coders during marking are instantly captured at the source by a high-efficiency Nilfisk fume extraction system.

name is a good ref lection of who Mother Parkers is as a company—genuine and real,” adds vice-president of business development Bill VandenBygaart.

“It really fits.”

Ranking as North America’s fourth-largest coffee producer and fifth-largest tea supplier, Mother Parkers is already “very well-represented in both with our own brands and our private-label products,” according to Trombetta, who cites extraordinary growth for both capsule/cup type single-serve coffees and tea, both in the consumer and foodservice markets.

With the plant’s ability to produce hundreds of millions of capsules per year, “it is now a fairly significant part of the business that is growing on a daily basis,” he extols.

“It is estimated that approximately 12 billion capsules will be consumed this year, and about 15 billion in the next five years—all driven by consumers embracing the single-serve format they see as highly convenient, very consistent, and one that offers significant value, compared to buying gourmet coffee at retail stores,” Trombetta explains.

Moreover, the capsule format also offers consumers a considerably wider choice of specialty blends and f lavors with the widespread emergence of new sales channels and retail stores specializing in the single-serve market segment.

“While the current household penetration for North America is still in that 15- to 20-percent range, the fact is that it has gotten there from

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS virtually zero in 2005 to achieving double-digit growth today,“ enthuses VandenBygaart. “This market segment has been growing by well over 15 per cent annually for the last several years.

“It’s now way beyond the ‘early adopters’ crowd— way beyond a fad.

“Single-serve brewers provide an especially attractive option for the many households with several people who like drinking different things, especially the younger generation who like to have their things ‘on-demand,’ where they want, and when they want it,” he states.

“We are no longer surprised any more that this single-serve segment is growing so rapidly—the real question is, ‘How far can it grow?’”

“Many grocery stores have already moved from four-foot sections for single-serve products to eight-foot and 12-foot sections,” adds Trombetta, “while some supermarkets now reserve up to a half of their entire coffee sections to the singleserve products.

A Schneider Electric fractional-horsepower motor helps regulate the movement of roller conveyors transferring cartons of boxed single-serve capsules to palletizing.

A high-speed Model 2510 printer-applicator manufactured by ID Technology is used to create the paper labels attached onto the side of each passing shipping carton.

“So while the growth might be slowing now, the overall volume growth is still very much there to be had,” Trombetta asserts.

Adds Paynter: “We also see future opportunities for our RealCup capsules beyond just the hot-beverage segment in products that may have not have been developed yet—savory beverages, for example.”

For now, however, the primary focus remains on growing the market penetration, geographic reach and brand loyalty for the fast-growing product portfolio of coffees and teas packaged in RealCup capsules, as well as the impending market launch of a whole new range of EcoCup capsules—made, in part, from recyclable marterials—which are already used to pack Mother Parkers’ Higgins & Burke brand loose-leaf tea products. Plans for coffee in EcoCup capsules will follow in coming

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months in both Canada and the U.S. The RealCup capsule plant handles production all the way from green beans to finished product.

The process begins with the raw green coffee being removed from burlap bags and then transferred to a cleaning process. The coffee is then placed into one of 16 bins above two blending scales. The blended green coffee is then transferred at a specific weight to one of two separate drum roasters, where the batches of coffee are then roasted for between 10 and 15 minutes, depending on product specification. Upon exiting the roaster, the coffee is cooled and staged prior to grinding.

The coffee is then ground by specially-designed roll grinders to control a very uniform particle size of the final ground product.

All the critical roasting parameters such as temperature, air f low, duration and carbon-dioxide levels are constantly being monitored and adjusted as needed in the plant’s central control room.

“We do quite a few quality checks during the grinding and roasting stages, checking every batch for roast color, roast profile, moisture content, particle size and so on,” explains Leung.

Once the coffee has been deemed to be ready for packaging, it is bulk-loaded into portable totes and transferred to several highly automated, custombuilt and fully-integrated packaging lines—manufactured by renowned Italian machine-builder IMA/GIMA—to be filled at high speeds inside the RealCup capsules, which are then packed upstream inside the pre-printed multipack folding cartons supplied by paperboard converter Boehmer Box of Kitchener, Ont.

Rows of filled RealCup capsules being swiftly picked up and positioned for precise placement inside cartons by end-effectors inside the GIMA machine’s case-packer.

High-precision pneumatic components manufactured

by Festo are deployed throughout the GIMA packaging machine, including the case-erector section upstream.

Help from Above

tailor the capsule to specific products to ensure While the coffee is being prepped for filling on a true authentic taste experience,” agrees Leung, the plant’s main level, multiple thermoforming praising the high quality, porosity and f lexibilmachines located on the mezzanine directly above ity properties of the patent-pending, non-woven the packaging lines are busy churning out vast FlavorMax material. quantities of the plastic RealCup and/or EcoCup “A lot of our partners need packaging that can capsules, which are fed to the packaging lines with truly differentiate their products,” Leung relates. the proprietary FlavorMax filters—also exclu“They need to have their production quantities sively developed by Mother Parkers specifically for meet their business plan, and we have the capabilthe capsules—securely affixed inside. ity to help them achieve that by providing them “Our superior FlavorMax filter technology is at unique options. the heart of our technology, used in the RealCup “We have an incredible amount of f lexibility that capsules,” says product engineering manager Dr. way,” he states.

Yucheng Fu, citing a total of 70 different patentUpon reaching the GIMA line, the capsules are pending applications and two granted patents filled with the pre-set amount of coffee, f lushed secured through the course of RealCup product with nitrogen to remove residual oxygen and development to date. hence preserve the coffee’s freshness, sealed, then “For us it’s all about pursuing the latest and greatlaser-coded by one of two side-by-side Markemest technologies out there to make sure we conImaje model 7031 laser coders for best-by date tinue to raise the bar in the marketplace,” he says. “And if the materials we need do not exist today, we will develop in-house or go outside to the top experts to help bring this technology in for us.

“We believe everything is possible, and we will invest what we need to make it happen —that is a very important differentiator for us,” he asserts.

“The filter material itself is also a key com- Line operator Lucy Lopes monitors operations of the entire GIMA packaging machine in ponent, allowing us to real time via the Beckhoff Automation touchscreen interface.

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

An additional model 7031 laser coder printer from Markem-Imaje is used to apply all the required variable product data onto the filled cartons of RealCup capsules.

Leading Canadian recycled corrugated packaging producer Atlantic Packaging Products Limited keeps the capsule plant well-supplied with high-quality shipping carriers.

and time of production, and transferred on to the “The machine performs several quality checks carton-loading system. inline to make sure customers get the highestAt this stage, specially designed robots with suction quality capsules, ” says Lopes, who came to Mother end-effectors swiftly pick them up in multiple rows and Parkers with extensive technical education and load them tightly into the paperboard boxes, formed occupational background. from die-cut blanks right next to the case-packer.

Lopes explains that the machine incorporates a The whole process is repeated in rapid-fire series of ultra-sensitive SICK sensors to continusequence, according to operator Lucy Lopes, who ously check for the presence and depth of the filter oversees operations of the entire line with just one inside capsules, as well as auto-reject any out-ofmore plant colleague. spec capsules that are ignored by the filler dur“This is a highly intelligent and f lexible machine ing the dosing stage and pulled off the line before to work with,” beams Lopes, who joined the capreaching the case-packer. sules plant two years ago. subjected to nitrogen flushing just before Cdn_Packaging_ad_extended.qxp:Layout 1 4/30/14 Each 1:25 cup PM isPage 1

Analytical lab technician Shelby Parkinson conducts tests to verify quality and performance of the company’s proprietary FlavorMax synthetic filters used in RealCups.

The new recyclable EcoCup single-serve capsules were designed to facilitate quick and easy separation of the lid and filter from the cup by consumers themselves.

Quality to convey?

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Whether you're a manufacturer shipping to Vancouver or a retailer receiving products from Newfoundland, you can be certain that CHEP Canada has the equipment and network to cover it all.

Combine this with three proven pallet options, a dedicated service rep for your account, and over 35 years of unparalleled experience throughout Canada, and you can trust that CHEP will be your supply chain partner today and in the years to come.

To learn how CHEP can help you, visit www.chep.com

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

A high-performance ProBlue adhesive dispensing system from Nordson Corporation helps ensure high-quality glue application for all the RealCup and EcoCup capsules.

the final seal of the lid, with any remaining oxygen simultaneously vacuum-sucked out of the cup.

According to Lopes, the GIMA machine allows for industry-standard weight control per dose of coffee or tea dispensed, while making sure each cup gets the maximum shelf-life protection from the nitrogen blanket inside the machine by minimizing the product’s exposure to oxygen during filling.

“Each capsule is sealed immediately after the nitrogen f lushing process, helping ensure a fresh cup of coffee each and every time,” Lopes says.

The line’s f lexibility naturally extends to the case-packing station, where two hard-working robots alternately invert the finished cups and gently insert the nested capsules into neatly stacked layers to optimize space utilization inside variouscount boxes—all done at very high speeds.

“Everything is fully-integrated on this line to minimize the risk of error,” says Lopes, adding that the plant’s staff operators have initiated a series of process improvements on all lines to reduce the average machine changeover time by 70 per cent.

“We are very proud of this collective achievement,” Lopes states. “In our minds, there is always room for improvement, and a lot of that improvement comes from our continuous team-building culture.”

The packed boxes are then inserted inside corru-

A dramatic comparison of the amount of waste left behind by standard single-serve capsules (left) and the leftover lidding and filters (far right) of the EcoCap capsules.

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Currently used to package some loose-leaf tea blends, the clear EcoCup capsules feature a minimal number of components for quick disassembly and recyclability.

gated cartons—supplied by Atlantic Packaging Products Limited—which are labeled by ID Technology’s Model 2510 printer-applicator and conveyed to the secondary packaging area for palletizing at each line’s respective, fully-automatic BFB Microf lex palletizing cells.

Employing a robust FANUC palletizing robot to create pre-programmed layer patterns, the boxes are quickly loaded onto skids and whisked away by fork forklift to a massive nearby Lantech rotary-ring stretchwrapper to secure the finished loads for shipping or storage.

“This is certainly not your average packaging line for the coffee industry by any stretch of imagination,” says Paynter, “and we intend to invest more as we continue to grow.

“We have the room we need to house several more lines if need be.”

Which may well be the case if the company’s eagerly anticipated commercial launch of its EcoCup single-serve coffee capsules made, in part, from recyclable material, meets the early optimistic expectations.

Says packaging development and sustainability manager Paul Yang: “Our goal is to be a sustainability leader in this single-serve space, which for us means fewest resources required per serving.

“It’s a one-liner that incorporates the sustainability trifecta of economic, environmental and social impacts and is fundamental in our design process,” says Yang, acknowledging the validity of criticisms directed at the coffee industry in recent years for the high level of difficulty in recycling the singleserve coffee-cups after use.

“Simply throwing capsules away is just not right; there is value in those components,” says Yang, citing EcoCup’s unique construction design that allows users to quickly separate the clear, widely-recycled polystyrene cup from the filter, the product inside, and the lid—quickly making the EcoCup shell itself completely ready to go into the recycling stream.

“It was important for us to enable this functionality while ensuring that we do not add extra complexity or materials in the process,” he states.

“In addition, all of the key components of all our capsules—the cup, filter and lid—arrive in rollstock

format and are converted in-house, instead of being manufactured externally and shipped in—thereby removing the extra packaging, handling and transportation steps that have a big rippling effect through the supply chain and operations.

“The 12 billion cups going into the landfills today, enough to wrap around the world 15 times, undoubtedly has a huge environmental impact. equiva “It’s a weight equivalent of about 176,700 cars, but if you can easily separate the components to enable recycling of the cup prod and composting of the product, the amount of waste going to the landfill can be reduced ori to about five per cent of the original weight—down to about 6,600 cars,” Yang explains.

“With EcoCup, we wanted innov to bring our passion for innovation to address environmental sustainability, which is one of the most important issues for both consumers and the industry,” says Yang.

“Sustainability has been very closely knitted do—from into everything we do —from our supply chain and operations to product development and what pro the consumer sees, and our EcoCup capsules provide an example of our commitment to sustainable packaging,” Yang concludes.

“It all took a lot of brainstorming around the table, a whole lot of research and testing, and a lot of discussion with consumers, academia and municipalities to develop our EcoCup solution, and we’re not done yet.”

For More Information: IMA/GIMA Atlantic Packaging Products Limited ID Technology Fanuc Robotics Canada Ltd. Nordson Canada, Limited Boehmer Box Markem-Imaje Inc. SICK Inc. Festo Inc. Lantech Inc. Beckhoff Automation LLC Schneider Electric

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Any Adhesive, Any Time, Anywhere – Nordson has a melter for every packaging application From new, tankless, char-free Freedom systems and pneumatic systems, to all-electric and manual systems, and everything in between, our melters process hundreds of adhesive types and formulations, including yours.

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!

Ontario goat cheese processor sets sights on its future growth and prosperity with top-grade packaging savvy and production line efficiency

BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY COLE GARSIDE

A

s one of the very first wild animals to be domesticated by the early humans, goats seem to suffer from an eternal Rodney Dangerfield syndrome of getting no respect— despite their fairly substantial historical contribution to humanity as an important source of food, milk, butter and clothing and many other of life’s key creature comforts.

More often than not used in everyday slang as insult or a disparaging term—unf lattering ‘scapegoat’ and ‘old goat’ references among many others—this surprisingly intelligent and naturally curious animal has clearly long been served a rather raw deal in the public relations department.

With its distinctive horns often depicted to symbolize all sorts of ungainly behavior—these days best dished up via the clenched-fisted ‘devil horns’ salute thrust into the air by excited heavy-metal rock fans—being a goat hardly comes across as any form of charmed existence.

Happily, however, such biased species profiling has no place at the Mariposa Dairy goat cheese processing facility in Lindsay, Ont. On the contrary, it’s a place where the domestic capra aegagrus hircus is accorded the ‘sacred cow’ reverence it richly deserves for helping the familyowned dairy to grow into Canada’s second-largest producer of premium, gourmet-quality goat

cheese products with a unique, award-winning, widely acclaimed taste profile and authenticity.

Rick Glab, Situated at a modGeneral Manager est 22,000-square-foot facility used by the company to make its once-niche goat cheese products since 2003, the company today boasts capacity to produce over one million kilograms of goat chevre (soft) cheese products per year, according to general manager Rick Glab.

“The business has doubled in the last three years,” Glab told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the dairy’s production and packaging site on the outskirts of Lindsay, a mostly rural community set in the scenic Kawartha Lakes region of southeastern Ontario.

Full Slate “We are in fact quickly outgrowing our current facility, which we have been expanding continually over the years to keep up with our growth in volumes,” Glab relates. “That’s why we are now in the process of designing and building a brand new production facility right across the street, which we hope to move into and start up early next year.”

Employing 45 full-time staff and an additional 20 seasonal workers during peak-time production

Bruce VandenBerg, Founder and Owner, Mariposa Dairy

periods, the Mariposa Dairy plant churns out a total of more than 200 different SKUs (stock-keeping units)—ranging from 130-gram vacuum-packed rolls to one-kilogram tubs for the foodservice sector—with about 40 per cent of its output already exported to the highly promising U.S. markets.

“It really would be an injustice to call it a niche market any more,” says Glab, pointing out that goat milk production in Ontario has soared from just two million liters in 1990 to over 30 million in 2012.

“It’s a real trend that is getting a lot of traction in

The highly-automated Multivac R 245 thermoformer enables Mariposa Dairy line workers to monitor the machine’s operation via the touchscreen HMI interface.

Installed this past January, the new R 245 thermoform packaging system from Multivac features an extra-long loading section to facilitate future robotics integration at the company’s much bigger new plant currently built across the street.

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The addition of the high-performance Multivac thermoformer will enable the Mariposa Dairy plant to produce about a million kilograms of chevre goat cheese this year.

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS the mainstream consumer markets.”

In fact, it is estimated that goat milk cheese now accounts for at least a two-percent share of all the cheese products consumed in North America and Europe.

“Consumers are demanding healthier alternative cheese products that taste good, and goat cheese is in many ways a perfect product to meet those demands,” Glab states, lauding the distinct tart and zesty natural taste profile that distinguishes goat cheese offering from cheeses made from cow’s milk and other species.

“Goat cheese is enriched with Vitamins A and D and it is suitable for lactose-intolerant diets as well.

“And it’s not just consumers driving the growth— goat cheese has grown in a big way in the foodservice market, and it can now be found commonly in all the major restaurant chains.”

Naturally, Mariposa Dairy is more than happy to supply both fast-growing market segments.

The foodservice industry now accounts for 22 per cent of the company’s output and private-label work— with leading food distributor Finica Fine Foods Specialties taking care of the company’s Canadian distribution requirements and Atalanta Corporation doing the same in the U.S.—and private-label work accounting for another 38 per cent.

The remaining 40 per cent is dedicated to production of the company’s own f lagship Celebrity brand of goat chevre cheese, which is now widely available through most of all the major Canadian grocery chains and independent stores.

independent farmers— purchased through Hewitt’s Dairy— naturally provides an important competitive edge in a sector that is becoming fairly competitive.

“Goat cheese has become a staple that is here to stay,” says Glab, who spent six years working with some of the leading Canadian wine producers based in British Columbia’s famed Okanagan Valley region.

“I compare it to a fine wine: It’s a much more

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Tellingly, the company’s earns about 60 per cent of its total annual revenues during the extremely busy September-December season preceding the year-end holiday frenzy.

“It’s really like a Santa’s workshop here at that time of year,” chuckles Glab, citing the company’s already busy spring and summer schedule that has the operation running “in staggered shifts, 20 hours a day, six-daysa-week” to accommodate the seasonal peak for goat milk production.

“We have a crew at 4:30 in the morning, another one starting at six to begin mixing the cheese, other staff joining at 7:30 to begin processing and packaging, and run in full mode until six in the evening,” Glab explains. “After that we do sanitation right up until midnight, and the whole cycle then repeats itself.”

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

An inline Bell-Mark LP traversing thermal-transfer system prints nutritional information onto top web prior to sealing.

The plant has been able to reduce the consumption of rollstock plastic film to make its vacuum-packed rolls by an average of 10 per cent, following some modifications to the Multivac machine’s die-box layout and configuration.

nuanced and developed taste experience on the palette than the standard cheddar cheese—starting off fresh and then have the unique aroma kick in and whet the appetite.

“It’s a very rewarding departure for many Canadian consumers who grew up on cheddar cheese; there is a lot more complexity to this product.

“It’s similar to Canadians evolving from a nation of beer-drinkers to an audience that still enjoys its beer, but has also developed a taste and appreciation for fine wines as well.

“Goat cheese is fast-becoming a part of the regular North American diet and palette,” says Glab, noting the growing popularity of goat cheese-based pizzas and other popular foods and dishes.

Even the retailing colossus Walmart is hopping aboard the goat cheese bandwagon—recently awarding Mariposa Dairy an account to co-pack its new Your Fresh Market private-label goat cheese product line.

Glab notes he is very encouraged with the Celebrity brand’s rising sales in the U.S., where the Gelert Global Group of companies owns the brand’s marketing rights.

“The U.S. market is still relatively underdeveloped, so that’s where the real growth opportunity lies,” says Glab.

Widely lauded in dairy industry circles as being a goat cheese category innovator in the truest sense of the word, Mariposa was the first-to-market producer in Canada to shake up the market with novel flavors like Cranberry and Apple-with-Cinnamon goat cheese, while vastly enhancing the Celebrity line’s upscale packaging look, versatility and shelf-life performance.

The company enjoyed a highly successful launch of the new 10.5-ounce ‘twin-packs’ in the U.S. just in time for the last Christmas season, as well as the highly-innovative eight-ounce ‘triple-packs’ of the Celebrity Garlic & Herb, Chipotle and Mediterranean varieties—indicating a promising untapped demand for its products south of the Canada-U.S. border.

“We are really excited about exporting to the U.S.,” Glab enthuses, “as we continue to evolve the packaging formats for both retail and foodservice markets with different package shapes and sizes to meet consumer demands.

“We already have a supply chain network in place and we’re working hard to make sure we have the capacity and the capability to deliver the product to market in the most efficient way possible.”

While the new 40,000-square-foot plant will provide the Mariposa Dairy operation with the muchneeded additional production space, the company has recently made a major investment in its production capacity with the purchase of a brand new high-performance, highly-automated, and highly versatile model R 245 thermoform packaging system manufactured in Germany by the renowned food packaging machine-builder Multivac Sepp Haggenmüller GmbH & Co. KG. Installed at the Lindsay plant this past January, the R 245 thermoformer is quickly helping Mariposa Dairy to implement its vision of transforming the whole operation into a true “lean manufacturing” enterprise that it needs to be to maintain and build on the company’s hard-earned market share gains well into the future.

Being designed specifically to accommodate future integration with robotics, the installation of this Multivac machine will help the plant ensure that the product is never touched by hand during packaging by automating all the loading and product handling operations, while providing exceptional operational f lexibility.

“We are not the type of factory that runs a single product for a full shift,” Glab explains. “We need to

Freshly-made rolls of soft goat cheese are thoroughly scanned by the Multivac machine’s ‘empty pocket detector’ before proceeding to further packaging stages.

The thermoformer is equipped with Multivac’s MR 822 metal detection and checkweigher combination system to ensure optimal product quality and safety.

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be quick with our changeovers to achieve optimum operational f lexibility, and that’s where this new Multivac comes in—enabling us to perform rapid changeovers in 20 minute or less, with no tools.

“There has been a been fair bit of custom engineering done on this machine by both Multivac and ourselves to achieve that.

“Operating as a ‘make to order’ facility that basically turns over its inventory every day, we need all the flexibility and productivity we can have, and this rollstock machine provides a great solution to our needs.”

Company owner Bruce VandenBerg says the company originally considered equipment options from three leading machine manufacturers before finally settling on Multivac, adding he was ultimately convinced about making the right decision after paying a visit to Multivac’s central manufacturing operations in the Bavarian town of Wolfertschwenden.

“Having seen how Multivac actually builds its equipment, and all the amazing engineering, design and attention to detail that goes into it had a big impact on our investment decision,” he recalls.

“The really big thing was that Multivac listened to us about our specific production and process

Multivac’s inline UP MR labeling system attaches product labels to the underside of the packages after sealing.

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS challenges,” VandenBerg adds, “and proceeded to the market. custom-design a machine with our goals in mind.

“All the key components are easily accessible,” “It was built with our new factory in mind, Brouwer adds, “and there are far pneumatic comwhere we plan to run a continuous production line ponents than is typical on this sort of machinery. to replace the three separate machine centers (mix“A lot of the machine’s operations are servoing, portioning and packing) we have now. driven, which means big energy savings,” he notes.

“Notably, it was designed with extra length to “Electricity is cheaper to run than compressed air.” accommodate a three-meter loading area, where we Brouwer adds he’s grateful for the high level of plan to install robotic systems at the new plant to expert technical assistance and professional service automate all the product loading functions. offered by Multivac Canada’s account rep Chris “The primary goal for doing this from a quality Salmon at all the critical phases in the project. perspective is that we don’t want anyone touching “He went above and beyond the call of duty our cheese, which is a fairly soft and delicate product.” right from our first visit to their show-room to Intended to help Mariposa Dairy to optimize the installation, and making himself available to its quality, efficiency, and waste reduction, the address any questions and concerns after startup.” plant’s investment in the Multivac thermoformer is While the new R 245 thermoformer is currently already paying off in all three areas. running at about 40 per cent of capacity, largely “In terms of efficiency, the machine’s operating due to current space constraints, all of the plant’s speed of 14 cycles per minute will enable us to prostaff is keenly looking forward to see the new duce 1,000 kilograms of cheese per hour, while the system’s perimetersealed packer ensures there’s no heat application to the product itself at any point in the packaging process,” Glab explains. “It’s vitally important for us to keep the cheese at 4ºC to achieve optimal product quality, which was a challenge with the old machine that used an open-design heat-plate.”

The new thermoformer has also enabled 10-percent savings in the amount of high-barrier plastic film used to vacuum-seal the cheese rolls.

“We challenged the Multivac people and our maintenance supervisor Ben Brouwer to help us reduce our film usage, as part of our ongoing efforts to reduce our overall carbon footprint, and that’s exactly what they did,” Glab states.

According to Brouwer, this involved changing the loading area’s original layout to a perpendicular design that would allow the machine to accommodate two interchangeable die-box sizes of 250-mm and 310-mm, while minimizing the gaps between the individual packages.

Having worked with the R 245 thermoformer extensively for the last four months, Brouwer is full of praise for the system’s powerful performance and design features.

“The machine’s HMI (humanmachine interface) does all the troubleshooting and machine diagnostics,” he says, “while its washdown-ready design means there are no corrosion points anywhere on the machine,” says Brouwer, adding he’s very fond of the machine’s inline product inspection capabilities.

Says Brouwer: “The machine’s inline MR822 metal detector and checkweigher combination detects all the unwanted contaminants as well as check the product weight at the same time— performing an automatic deflection of contaminated product or any product does not meet our weight specs.

“This product is def lected on-theFOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE 114 f ly into lockable bins, removing any Multivac Canada Inc. risk of contaminated product hitting Toll Free: 877 264 1170

machine reach its full potential at the new plant following the planned integration with robotics.

“There is no sense of fear that they’re going to lose their jobs because of automation,” Glab says.

“On the contrary, our people are embracing this automation because it means they’ll be able to perform less manual and more value-added tasks to help us keep up with our growth.

“What automation means to our staff is an upgrade in their job status—being employed in technical operator positions, rather than as general laborers.

“This way, everybody wins.”

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Manufactured by leading packaging machinery builder Bosch Packaging Technology, the highperformance Pack 401 horizontal flowwrapper has enabled vast improvements in throughput speeds and operational flexibility at the Yourbarfactory production facility in Montreal.

RAISING THE BAR Packaging line automation hits productivity sweet-spot for nutrition bar co-packer

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ou can never really set the bar high enough in today’s fiercely competitive international market for nutritional bars, where venerable packaged foods giants compete head-tohead with a multitude of f ledgling mom-and-pop shops convinced they have discovered the best way to deliver unrivaled physical prowess, stamina and muscle growth.

But with the U.S. food-bar market alone estimated to be worth US$5.7 billion in 2011, you can’t really blame companies of all types for trying to get the biggest slice of the market pie they can while the going is good.

And there is certainly no lack of effort or will to do just that at Yourbarfactory, a thriving privatelabel bar manufacturer that custom produces and packages bar products to the brand-owners’ exact specifications at the company’s gluten- and nutfree manufacturing facility in Montreal.

Originally started up in 1985 for the primary-

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purpose of manufacturing marshmallow squares under the Rapid Snack brand label, Yourbarfactory has grown in leaps and bounds in the last three decades by helping many prominent food manufacturers around the world to bring their bars to market in timely manner.

Employing about 70 full-time personnel, the 40,000-square-foot facility nowadays boasts capacity to produce 150 million bars per year for a growing global customer base spanning more than 10 countries worldwide.

Creative Vision “We can either create a new product to your specifications or start from one of our existing formulations to get inspired and adapt it to your needs,” the company’s website proudly states.

“No mater your choice, you will be able to launch your product to the market within three to nine months.”

In addition to manufacturing a wide assortment of food bars—including sport-and-fitness and diet-and-nutrition supplements—Yourbarfactory also offers its customers a comprehensive range of much appreciated value-added services, including packaging, distribution and logistics support, and market consultation.

This includes formulation of theoretic recipes, label and packaging approval, production of samples, sourcing of new ingredients, writing of the nutritional statements, and providing valuable key trend intelligence and information on current market trends and conditions.

According to the company, this all translates into a shorter product development cycle and smoother product launches for the company’s private-label customers.

The company’s ‘A-to-Z’ business model for bar production has been so well received that Yourbarfactory enjoyed robust 30-percent business

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Photos courtesy of Bosch Packaging Technology

AUTOMATE NOW A row of freshly-made marshmallow crispy squares is fed towards the flowrapping section via a fast-moving split conveyor belt that can be easily changed by plant’s personnel to accommodate fast product changeovers in minutes without any tools.

growth between 2004 to 2014.

While great for the bottom line, the soaring demand also exposed some of the existing process inefficiencies on the production lines that needed urgent improvement—making the need to automate the plant’s antiquated packaging line operation a top capital investment priority.

The old method—whereby the plant’s processing and packaging lines were decoupled, the bars manually collected after they were formed, and then transferred to the packaging area to be manually fed into horizontal f lowwrappers for packaging—simply became too slow to keep up with rising production volumes.

“The process was very laborintensive, requiring 10 people for manually transferring the bars and feeding our four f lowwrappers,” recalls Yourbarfactory’s technical director Cedrick Boivin.

“Our maximum production rate at the time was 400-ppm (products per minute), or 100-ppm per f low wrapper,” Boivin divulges.

“The end result was considerable waste and downtime, with product losses of five to seven per cent not uncommon with this process f low,” he relates.

“Also, the product changeover and cleaning time on those machines was quite considerable.

“We knew we needed to achieve an average line speed of 600-ppm to keep up with the demand,” he says, “and we also wanted to redeploy our labor to more high-value operations in order to boost the plant’s overall productivity and efficiency levels.”

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Since great labels begin with a great design, our graphics group can take your art file – or help you create one – and make certain your label will showcase your brand. We help your product stand out from the pack.

We’ll also help you select the right label material and pressure-sensitive adhesive from literally hundreds of combinations to ensure they’re perfectly compatible with your brand’s package. By using clear labels, metallic materials and other treatments, we can make your label jump off the shelf.

Then our experienced press operators use the latest digital or flexographic printing technologies and quality assurance standards to print exactly the labels you want.

That’s how we provide the most awesome labels you can get. And, if you also need to apply the labels yourself, we manufacture a complete line of precision high-speed label applicator systems as well as industry leading print and apply solutions.

Top Choice After carefully researching several options to upgrade his packaging line, and receiving proposals from numerous well-respected packaging equipment manufacturing companies, Boivin ultimately decided to go with the automated packaging solution and equipment offered by Bosch Packaging Technology.

Headquartered in the town Waiblingen near Stuttgart, Germany, Bosch Packaging is a well-renowned, globally operating manufacturer of automated process and packaging equipment, as well as an expert integrator of complete system solutions for the global food-and-beverage, pharmaceutical and confectionery industries.

“We analyzed the TCO (total cost of ownership) estimates from a wide range of f lowwrapper suppliers and Bosch came out on top,” recounts Boivin.

“We already knew the solid reputation of the company’s Doboy brand

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Marshmallow squares coming out of the processing area are spread out in neat multiple rows for packaging.

The Pack 401 flowrappers at Yourbarfactory are capable of achieving speeds of up to 650 pieces per minute.

of wrappers, and during the selection process we developed a good, trusting relationship with our local Bosch sales representative, Fred Farago, who made a strong case for selecting Bosch Packaging’s Pack 401 flowwrapper and feeding system for our operations.

“After he showed us the significant advantages in using this particular equipment to maximize our packaging line efficiency, our capital investment decision became quite easy,” Boivin relates.

In early 2013, the Yourbarfactory plant proceeded to install two model Pack 401 horizontal f lowwrappers with a Bosch Pack Feeder 4 infeed system, Boivin relates.

Boasting film speeds of up to 80 meters per minute, the high-performance Pack 401 horizontal f lowwrapper can achieve output levels of up to 600 products per minute—perfectly fitting Yourbarfactory’s speed requirements—with its modular design enabling seamless integration with Delta-type pick-and-place robotics, various infeed modules, product handling equipment, and secondary packaging machinery.

Engineered to ensure a high degree of reliability and efficiency, according to Bosch Technology, the Pack 401 f lowwrapper incorporates advanced gap control technology to produce consistent, repeatable and precise seal integrity, while a standard dual-spindle back-stand with power feed rollers allows for full automation with vastly improved splicing, cutting, auto tracking and tight cutoffs.

For its part, Bosch Technology’s Pack Feeder 4 infeed system was designed as a cost-effective solution for packaging bakery and confectionery products in plastic cardboard trays, according to the company, featuring tool-less belt changes and

an easy-to-clean design for minimal maintenance requirements and optimal machine uptime.

In addition to the f lowwrappers and the feeder, Yourbarfactory also installed a new product distribution system (PDS) using row removal stations to automatically transport the bars from the processing to the packaging lines, Boivin points out.

Foil-wrapped marshmallow crispy squares exiting the Pack 401 machine’s discharge section at high speeds.

Adding Value “Adding the Bosch equipment has made our packaging line an extremely efficient operation,” Boivin enthuses. “It now requires only two operators to run it—allowing us to redirect our existing manpower to the higher-skilled tasks that add real value to the process.

“Moreover, the new equipment has helped us to achieve output rates of 650-ppm,” he extols.

“It also helped us to reduce our product waste dramatically to less than one per cent for highvolume products,” he says, praising the abundance of optional and standard features on the Pack 401 wrappers that enabled further improvements in efficiency and time-savings throughout the line.

“When launching a new product, when production runs are usually less than 100,000 bars, our packaging speeds slow to around 150 ppm,” Boivin notes. “For these small runs, the system’s automatic ‘No product/No paper’ feature considerably reduces the film waste on our end—thereby creating significant cost-savings for a startup customer,” notes Boivin.

Another key benefit is that the Pack 401 system’s automatic film splice eliminates downtime for film changes and the auto reject mechanism on the infeed prevents jams from occurring.

The Yourbarfactory plant takes care of all of its customers’ packaging requirements and materials.

“In the past, our f lowwrappers were down for at least five minutes every hour, whereas now any downtime is a rare occurrence,” he says.

Clean Act Moreover, Boivin cites a 50-percent reduction in cleaning time for the wrappers and feeders—thanks to the easy belt removal and a highly hygienic overall design that effectively removes the risk of cross-contamination in an environment where many different products are manufactured within a brief time-frame.

“As one can imagine, packaging different bars every few days on the same line requires a high amount of f lexibility,” states Boivin.

“We need f lexible machines so we can meet all of our customer’s demands,” says Boivin, “and the Pack 401 horizontal f lowwrapper has provided the necessary versatility with its quick change parts and touchscreen recipe selections that trigger automatic servomotor adjustments to quickly prepare the machine for the next product.”

According to Boivin, the success of the plant’s automation investment in Bosch Packaging equipment already has the company considering additional similar upgrades as the business continues to grow.

And with a move to a bigger production facility tentatively scheduled for 2016, the final chapter of Yourbarfactory’s success with packaging automation is yet to be written.

For More Information: Bosch Packaging Technology

An overview of the Yourbarfactory plant’s recently automated packaging area, where technical director Cedrick Boivin (in blue lab coat) is discussing the line’s performance with the two machine operators running it.

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Please see a video on Bosch Packaging Technology’s flowwrapping line in operation at Yourbarfactory’s facility in Montreal at www.canadianpackaging.com

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SWEET UNIVERSAL APPEAL

How award-winning inkjet coders earned their keep at U.K. confectionery co-packing plant

A

contract packager’s life is anything but easy and predictable, so any help they can get from their technology suppliers to run their operations f lexibly and cost-effectively is naturally welcomed and embraced with open arms.

Which is exactly how things unfolded last year at the Universal Flexible Packaging confectioneries co-packing plant in Leicester, England, where the family-run business was so impressed with a trial run of the Linx CJ400 continuous inkjet (CIJ) printer—manufactured in the U.K. by Linx Printing Technologies—that it proceeded to purchase six Linx CJ400 models to replace the various thermal-transfer, label and drop-ondemand printers it was using before.

“We simply turn them on at the beginning of a shift and turn them off at the end,” says the plant’s engineering supervisor Steve Potter.

A lot of the plant’s daily business consists of producing high-end bag-in-box confectionery products which then go into a shipping carton, relates Potter, explaining that the Linx CJ400 printers are used to print required product information onto filled preformed pouches while the pouch is passing through a sealer.

The high-performance Linx CJ400 printers— winner of the Most Innovative Processing or Packaging Machine category at the PPMA (Processing & Packaging Machinery Association)’s Group Industry Awards 2012 competition—are also used to code onto the inner and outer boxes on a semiautomatic line and onto secondary packaging, where the coder is placed on the outfeed of a casetaping machine. (See Pictures) Because different packaging requirements often means that new lines are built ad hoc to meet demand, Potter explains, Universal Flexible Packaging was looking for full f lexibility insofar as being able to move the printers easily between packaging lines.

Not only did the Linx CJ400 printers satisfy this requirement, Potter says their versatility actually enabled the plant to expand its range of services.

“We can now also code onto plastic tubs, bottles, buckets and all manner of shapes and sizes—some of which we were unable to do before we used the Linx coders,” Potter enthuses.

“We’ve even used it to print on to a label while the label is being automatically applied to a bag.”

Using the proprietary Linx Black versatile mixed-base T583 ink formulation, the Linx CJ400 coder copes easily with coding onto the varnished card of high-value packs where ink adhesion can be an issue.

Potter also points out that the machines’ clean operation is critically important in the plant’s strictly-observed hygienic environment where all plant staff wear gloves, hair nets, no jewelery, and use handwash stations whenever re-entering the work area.

Says Potter: “We have a huge range of customers to satisfy who are becoming increasingly involved in the production process, including auditing the site and watching the first production run.

“The Linx CJ400’s compact foot print and easeof-operation were also important considerations, and

our operators and engineers found them to be far more user-friendly than other coders we tried.

“They were also easier to move from one line to another due to their low center of gravity and compact size, while servicing via the service module is also very easy,“ says Potter. “The printers are very good for our high-end premium products that are usually quite small or offer a small target area for coding.

“The user interface is very easy to use—if you are able to use a smart phone then you can use the printer,” Potter sums up. “All the service modules are quick-and-easy to change, making Linx CJ400 a clean machine that requires little in the way of upkeep.”

For More Information: Linx Printing Technologies

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EQUIPPED TO GROW

Quebec meat processor takes next step in its growth with new thermoformer equipment ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR PHOTOS BY MARIO JOBIN

I

n the history of any business, there are indeed pockets in time that are obviously more important than others—pivotal moments that define a company when things go either horribly wrong or incredibly right.

One such positive moment at Boucherie Gaétan Rhéaume Inc., a meat processing plant situated in the Lac-Saint-Charles district of Quebec City, occurred after it recently purchased a brand new thermoformer.

When Boucherie Rhéaume first opened up its doors in 1987, company owners Gaétan and Manon Rhéaume envisioned it to be a hopefully profitable, local butcher shop supplying locals in the area with quality cuts of meat.

While any new business owner would be lying if they didn’t envision that their new business would one day be a global leader, the Rhéaume family were smart enough to realize the Rome was not built in a day.

The Boucherie Rhéaume shop started small, but thanks to following its own business plan right from Day One to only serve quality meat and meat products, things began to work well for them.

Despite a fair number of other local butchers in the area, Boucherie Rhéaume began to thrive, even more so after it diversified their customer base slightly to now provide its meats to local area hotels, restaurants and other institutions.

While business was always on the upswing, it was quite apparent that while the world of retail was fun and profitable, in order to take things to the next level, the company had to evolve.

In 1993, Boucherie Rhéaume stopped dealing with the retail market, and reinvented itself to deal exclusively with the wholesale market.

According to Gaétan Rhéaume, “We decided to abandon the retail meat business in order to create a

Gaétan Rhéaume, Co-owner, Boucherie Gaétan Rhéaume Inc.

Audrey Rhéaume, Head of Sales & Development

better future for the company, where we could achieve that by utilizing our expertise gained from our growing customer base and apply it on a larger scale.”

The plan worked, and over the ensuing 21 years, Boucherie Rhéaume grew its customer base enough to warrant three expensive facility renovations while increasing the size of its production line area to its current size of 8,000-square-feet, a good success story for a company that started out as a butcher in a little shop.

Regional Player Today, Boucherie Rhéaume is considered to be a growing regional player in the food wholesale market, now providing a more diverse line-up of high quality cuts of beef, veal, pork and chicken, as well as sausages, greaves (the edible unmeltable residue left after animal fat has been rendered),

A Boucherie Gaétan Rhéaume employee loads cuts of high-quality beef into the lower film pocket of the Reiser Repak RE15 thermoformer, with pre-printed clear plastic film supplied by Duropac.

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Manon Rhéaume, Co-owner

meat skewers, and marinated meats and stuffed meat products.

“Our strength is our ability to provide competitive prices, fresh meats and other home-made products,” notes Rhéaume, “and since we are still a small business, we can provide all of our customers with a high level of personalized service.”

The business plan seems to be working well for Boucherie Rhéaume, as the 30-employee company generates over $9-million in annual sales, topped only by the fact that it is growing anywhere between 10 and 20 per cent each year.

Nowadays, the former small corner butcher is providing over two-million pounds (~910,000 kilograms) of meat every a year, shipping its products mainly within the central region of the Quebec province, but has recently begun finding unique business opportunities ranging Rimouski to Montreal.

Thanks to this growth, Boucherie Rhéaume began examining its production line to create better efficiencies, looking at ways it could improve its food products which might also attract a wider customer base.

“I think it’s rare for small privately-owned companies as ours to be able to take the next step with automation—it’s a gamble and often that makes it a difficult decision to purchase what to us is a sophisticated piece of equipment,” notes Rhéaume.

Despite that, the folks at Boucherie Rhéaume aren’t big on gambling with the company’s fortunes, which was why making the correct choice of equipment was done under the utmost care and research when looking for a new thermorformer.

Purchasing a brand new Reiser Repak RE15 thermoformer in 2013, Boucherie Rhéaume had reason to be supremely confident in its purchase.

“We had previously purchased a Vemag brand slicer from Reiser,” says Rhéaume, “and it has given us full satisfaction.

“On the Repak RE15, the quality of the seal it

CANADIAN PACKAGING • JUNE 2014

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AUTOMATE NOW provides has contributed to a longer shelf-life of our products,” says Rhéaume also admiring the speed it lends the entire production line.

He continues: “We also chose the Repak RE15 because while it gives us exactly what we need for our present needs, it also gives us the f lexibility to increase our production rates as future demand requires.”

The Repak RE15 is constructed of stainless steel and is designed to provide excellent food safety even during the mundane operation of cleaning.

Designed with rounded edges, the Repak thermoformers are robustly built to avoid the accumulation of water, cleaners or particulates.

Other excellent features of the Reiser Repak, include: • Easy access for maintenance; • Quick and simple product changeover that helps save on labor costs while making on-time deliveries; • A simple-to-use and operate HMI (humanmachine interface) touchscreen; • Flexibility to integrate the thermoformer with all brands of labeling and data coding print systems.

For Boucherie Rhéaume’s production needs, it runs the Repak RE15 at the rate of 10 cycles per minute, mainly utilizing it to package individual portions of meats weighing between 100 to 280-grams.

Tight Seal According to Reiser, the Repak equipment utilizes a rapid air-forming method on all its machines, which provides the best distribution of the film into all areas, including corners to ensure that a perfect seal is possible.

This maximizing of film distribution actually allows operators to use a thinner film leading to substantial film savings.

Standard on the Repak RE15 is the speciallydesigned four-point lifting system on the forming and sealing dies that creates superb closing pres-

sures that enables it to offer an extremely tight seal and thus package reliability.

Boucherie Rhéaume chose to use plastic film from food packaging specialists Duropac. After achieving a hermetic seal, the packages are hand-placed into corrugated cartons supplied by Norampac, a division of Cascades Canada.

The meat processor has three other production line machines from Reiser—a Vemag brand stuffer, a Seydelmann mixer-grinder, and a Vemag brand Lucky-Linker all-in-one sausage-making machine.

The Lucky Linker was purchased by Boucherie Rhéaume in November of 2013 to provide the meat processor with a quick and affordable manner of sausage production.

This one-piece machine consists of a vacuum filler with double screws, a built-in linker, a casing holder, one linker horn set, and one straight filling horn—all of which will enable the operator to create sausages via straight-filling, clipping, or linking collagen, cellulose, or natural casing.

While the Lucky Linker comes standard with a 45-liter hopper capacity and a see-through cover to easily determine how much product is left in it, Reiser points to the double screw technology as the heart of the filler.

Depending on the particulate size, it can operate at a maximum rate of 2,000-kilograms per hour, but can also handle larger meat chunks to produce the best possible product without smear and without worrying the operator about possible equipment damage.

The entire pumping system of the Lucky Linker is constructed from corrosion-free materials, while those all-important double mixing screws are made from stainless steel to give the machine a long life while providing the operator with even portioning.

While the Repak RE15 thermoformer was originally purchased to help it increase its production line output with automation, Boucherie Rhéaume has discovered that the time saved has allowed it to Featuring a large 45-liter hopper (inset), the Vemag brand Lucky Linker from Reiser can operate at a rate of 2,000-kilograms of meat per hour thanks to its double screw technology.

The Repak RE15 thermoformer from Reiser provides excellent food safety benefits and a long product shelf-life.

Reiser’s Vemag brand Lucky Linker is a very robust and complete all-in-one sausage-making machine.

actually increase its capacity, which has allowed it to go after new customers—exploring new markets within the Trois-Rivières area, for example, and increasing its presence in Ottawa.

Boucherie Rhéaume is so pleased with the Reiser Repak thermoformer that they believe it will actually help them in achieving specific foodsafety certification.

The company recently began the process of achieving the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points)-certification of food safety, a key achievement for the meats processor as it chases after new markets.

“We think we will achieve this accreditation by the end of 2014,” says Rhéaume noting that the increased automation and attention to food safety will be key factors in attaining the next level for Boucherie Rhéaume, now no longer that little butcher shop on the corner.

For More Information:

Line equipment workers at Boucherie Gaétan Rhéaume find the Reiser Repak RE15 touchscreen easy-to-use.

JUNE 2014 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

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The clear film with a modicum of branding, provides the thermoformed meat packs with superb product visibility.

Reiser (Canada) Co. Duropac Inc. Norampac (Division of Cascades Canada ULC)

447 448 449

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ANNOUNCEMENTS  Swiss-headquartered Amcor Flexibles Europe & Americas has won two awards in the recently-held Alufoil Trophy 2014 competition of the European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA),, including top prizes in the contest’s Consumer Convenience and Marketing & Design categories. Produced for pharmaceuticals supplier Merck Sharp & Dohme Australia (MSDA), Amcor’s EMEND Tri-pack Formpack with peelable lidding—a peelable lid blister-pack combining a lidding foil and a Formpack cold-formed bottom web—provided a major enhancement to the openability and product protection for patented medication used to prevent nausea and vomiting caused by certain anticancer medicines, according to the judging panel. For its part, the Amcor-made Belmoca coffee capsules—featuring shiny, diamond faceted aluminum capsules in five different colors to match individual coffee flavors—helped the Belmoca brand achieve highly effective product differentiation at the shelf-level, while also playing homage to the brand’s ‘a diamond in your cap’ tagline.  Kingsey Falls, Que.-headquartered forest products group Cascades Inc. has announced plans to permanently shut down its Cascades Djupafors subsidiary in Ronneby, Sweden, by the end of June 2014, citing difficult economic conditions in the European markets. “It is with regret that we announce this difficult decision, which is the result of weak market conditions,” says Cascades president and chief executive officer Mario Plourde. “The current economic situation in Europe is forcing us to reorganize our European production activities in order to compete,” says Plourde, adding that the mill’s current customers will continue to be serviced by the company’s other European-based coated boxboard mill operation located in La Rochette, France. Originally acquired

by Cascades in 1989, the Ronneby mill employs 130 people and has annual production capacity of 60,000 tonnes of coated boxboard used primarily in the production of decorative folding cartons.

 Matthews International Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa.-headquartered supplier of branding services for consumer goods businesses and memorialization products for the funeral home industry—including cast bronze and granite memorials, mausoleums, and related cast and etched architectural products—has reached a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of prominent brand development and marketing services provider SGK (formerly Schawk, Inc.) of Des Plaines, Ill., in a cash-and-stock transaction estimated at about US$577 million. Under the terms of the deal— expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2014 pending regulatory approvals—current SGK chief executive officer David Schawk will head the two companies’ merged brand solutions business, which will operate under the SGK banner.  Printing and packaging products and services group Multi Packaging Solutions/Chesapeake (MPS/CSK) has completed the acquisitions of two prominent manufacturers of plastic cards for the credit, debit, gift, loyalty and insurance card markets—including Jet Lithocolor of Downers Grove, Ill., and Integrated Printing Solutions (IPS) of Denver, Co.—for an undisclosed amount.  Leading global aluminum producer Alcoa has announced plans for a US$40-million upgrade at its rolling mill in Itapissuma, Brazil, to boost production capacity for the aseptic and f lexible packages manufactured there—citing projections of seven-percent annual growth in Brazil for specialty packaging, which is said to be driven by population growth and consumer preference for this type of packaging.  Neehan, Wis.-based Menasha Packaging Company has completed the acquisition of Strine Printing Company, Inc., a well-established supplier of prepress, offset printing, digital printing, finishing, and fulfillment services based in York, Pa., for an undisclosed amount. “The acquisition strengthens our graphic packaging, merchandising and fulfillment capabilities and supports our operations on the East Coast,” says Menasha Packaging president Mike Waite.

PEOPLE  The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), Mississauga, Ont.headquartered national trade organization for the plastic industry’s processors, material suppliers, equipment manufacturers and brand-owners, has appointed Krista Friesen as vice-president of Friesen sustainability.  Motion Industries, Birmingham, Ala.-based distributor of bearings, mechanical power transmission, electrical and industrial automation products and components, has appointed Richard Burmester as senior vicepresident for the Southwest sales group; and Austin Amos Burmester as senior vicepresident of the new Midwest Amos sales group.  PaperWorks Industries, Inc., Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-headquartered manufacturer of folding cartons and other paperboard packaging products, has appointed Kevin Kwilinski as president and chief executive officer.

Freudenthaler

 Flint Group, Luxembourgheadquartered manufacturer of printing inks, coatings and specialty additives, has appointed Eva Freudenthaler as vice-president of marketing and technology for f lexographic products.

 Australian packaging machinery and equipment group tna has appointed Patrick Avelange as vicepresident for the Americas region.  Chicago-headquartered plastic packaging group Coveris has appointed Gary Masse as chief executive officer.

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Robotic Tool Changers increase flexibility and productivity.

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• Increase the flexibility of your robots by adding the ability to use more than one end-effector in an application.

• Production line tooling changed in seconds for maximum flexibility.

• Change tools in seconds for maintenance and repair.

• Increase operator safety by changing tools automatically.

• Million-cycle tested for reliability.

• Food-handling models available.

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 Modular conveyor systems manufacturer Dynamic Conveyor Corporation of Muskegon, Mich., has appointed Tim DeVriendt as inside sales territory manager.

 Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery, Inc., Sturtevant, Wis.based manufacturer of dry product filling systems, has appointed Richard Laforest as new project manager.

Locking Balls—Low-friction locking balls extend the life of the unit

www.ati-ia.com/cpc 919.772.0115

Avelange

Laforest

 Descon Conveyor Systems of Newmarket, Ont., has appointed Jeff Philpott as applications group manager; Charles Cox as controls group manager; Jamie Cooper as project group manager; and Steve Nixon as general manager.

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JUNE 2014

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EVENTS June 24-25

Oct. 20-22

Nov. 17-20

Chicago: Multilayer Packaging Films 2014, conference by Applied Market Information. At the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. To register, go to: www.amiconferences-na.com

Tokyo, Japan: COSME Tech 2014, international exhibition for cosmetic ingredients, machinery and packaging by Reed Exhibitions Japan Ltd. Concurrently with COSME Tokyo 2014 cosmetic products exhibition. Both at Tokyo Big Sight. To register, please go to: www.cosmetokyo.jp

France: Emballage, international packaging exhibition by Comexposium. At Paris Nord Villepinte.

To register, please go to: www.all4pack.com

June 24-26 Rosemont, Ill.: Sensors Expo & Conference, by Questex Media Group LLC. At Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. To register, go to: www.sensorsexpo.com

July 3-4 Beijing, China: China Safe & Sustainable Packaging Summit, conference by Duxes (Shanghai) Business Consulting Inc. At Crowne Plaza Beijing Chaoyang U-Tow. To register, go to: www.duxes-events.com/pkg5/

July 16-17

Chicago: PACK EXPO International 2014, packaging technologies and materials exhibition and conference by PMMI-The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

Concurrently with Pharma Expo processing and packaging conference and trade show and the AIPA World Congress by the (Active and Intelligent Packaging Industry Association). All at the McCormick Place fairgrounds. To register, please go to: www.packexpo.com

Singapore: Medical Fair Asia 2014, international medical device industry exhibition by Messe Düsseldorf GmbH. At Suntec Singapore. To register, go to: www.medicalfair-asia.com

Sept. 9-12 Nairobi, Kenya: East Afripack 2014, processing, packaging and converting technologies exhibition by IpackIma S.p.A. At Kenyatta International Conference Center. Contact Ipack-Ima via email at: ipackima@ipackima.it

Sept. 18-21 Istanbul, Turkey: Eurasia Packaging Fair 2014, international exhibition and conference by Reed Tüyap. At Tüyap Fair Convention and Congress Center. To register, go to: www.packagingfair.com

Sept. 23-24

Sept. 30 - Oct. 2 Toronto: A Day in the Life Symposium, sustainable packaging conference

by PAC, Packaging Consortium. At Steam Whistle Brewery (Sept. 30 and Oct. 1) and Real Sports Bar & Grill (Oct. 2). Contact PAC at (416) 4907860; via email pacinfo@pac.ca, or go to: www.pac.ca

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Brussels, Belgium: European Bioplastics Conference,

by European Bioplastics. At the Square Brussels Meeting Center. To register, please go to: www.european-bioplastics.org

For further information on either advertisements or editorial in this issue, please circle the appropriate numbers below.

Once you’ve filled out your contact information, fax this form back to us at: 416.510.5140

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New York City: MakeUp in New York, beauty products exhibition. At Center548. To register, go to: www.makeup-in-newyork.com

JUNE 2014

Dec. 2-3

FREE PRODUCT INFORMATION

Sept. 9-11

Sept. 9-11

Montreal: PACKEX Montreal, packaging technologies exhibition by UBM Canon. Concurrently with Expoplast, Design & Manufacturing Montreal, Automation Technology Expo (ATX) Montreal, and Powders & Bulk Solids. All at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. To register, please go to: wwwe.UBMCanonEvents.com/Montreal

Nov. 2-5

Chicago: New Packaging for HighSpeed Customers, conference by TricorBraun. At Chicago Hyatt Regency. Contact TricorBraun at 1 (800) 325-7782, or go to: www.tricorbraun.com Rosemont, Ill.: LabelExpo Americas 2014, international labeling technologies exhibition by Tarsus Group.

At Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. To register, go to: www.labelexpo-americas.com

Nov. 19-20

35

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IMPORTANT: Please complete the following questions What is the primary business at your location?

Which of the following do you plan on purchasing within the next 12 months?  Advesives  Checkweigher  Machine Vision  Adhesive Applicator  Colour Label Printer  Metal Detector  Bar Code Equipment  Conveyors  Modified Atmosphere  Capper  Filler Packaging Machinery  Cartoners  Ink Jet Equipment  Palletizer  Case Packer  Intermediate Bulk Containers  Pallets  Case Sealer  Labeler  PLC’s, Sensors, Controls Approximate number of employees?

Is this company a:  Package User  Custom Packager  Package Maker  Supplier

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 Print & Apply Label Applicator  RFID Equipment  Robotics  Scales & Weighing Equipment  Shipping Containers  Shrink Film  Shrink Wrapper

 Strapping Equipment  Stretch Wrapper  Stretchwrap Film  Shipping Containers  Tape  Vacuum Packaging JUNE 2014

14-05-26 14-06-09 10:58 2:51 PM AM

THOUGHTFUL DESIGN FOR PACKAGING AFTERLIFE

I

t’s rare, but every now and then I discover products that have such great packaging that I just have to buy them primarily for that reason. There are a lot of products out with extremely innovative packaging designs—many of them fully-recyclable to boot. But that’s still not the same as the kind of packaging that you keep long after the product contents are gone—having been repurposed as a functional décor piece at home or the office. And is it not every brand-owner’s dream to have their brand names displayed as prominently and permanently as possible?

When I came across the Tealia Tea exhibitor booth at the SIAL 2012 international food show in Toronto, the rich product aroma hanging about the display was impossible to ignore. As the company’s representative from its North American office in Markham, Ont., asked me to guess the ingredients inside a small, see-through silky pyramid-shaped tea pouch he held out in front of me, I eventually arrived at the right combin answer of a chocolate-and-coconut combination. Intrigued, I continued to examine the brand’s other whimsical packaging designs, whereby its Ceylon Cinnamon Chai has the graphics of an elephant tittering on a tea-cup’s rim, while the Raspberry Truffle dessert tea blend, one of my favorites, has a cartoonish parachute attached to a tea-cup ready for take-off. While the company’s individually packaged tea comes packed in the usual paperbox format, the company’s loose-leaf packaging tins, outfitted with a f lip-f lop opener, make a perfect complement for my home office desk—slowly turning me into a bigger tea aficionado than I ever thought possible.

It’s an oddly similar attraction for the Kraken Spiced Black Rum brand bottle distributed by the New Jersey-based distiller Proximo Spirits, Inc. Every time the maple syrup season comes around, I find myself looking for a suitable bottle that I could use to hold some of Canada’s freshly-tapped liquid gold. So upon seeing the enchanting seafaring bottle design—with the mythical ship-destroying Kraken on the label—I knew that I just had to have one. Since having “released the Kraken”—in the process discovering several inspired new rum cocktail recipes, such as with ginger beer and lime juice— I have rethought the eventual use of the container to that of a liquid soap or shampoo dispenser, easily enabled by affixing a tight-fitting pump to the top of the bottle. Even if the funky illustrated squid label eventually wears off, the great embossed branding on the bottle will keep the Kraken name alive in my household.

There is no shame in being a sucker for old-school designs, especially when they are executed with the class and elegance of the J.R. Watkins brand of lavender hand soap and lotion bottles from J.R. Watkins Natural Products of Winona, Minn.

Complete with a reusable metal holder, the product literally wears its apothecary credential proudly on its sleeve, as it were, actually using the old-fashioned term on some of its product labeling to great aesthetic effect.

Boasting a guilt-free, natural plantbased, ammonia-free formulation with no animal testing of any sort, the well-crafted lotion bottle projects pure authenticity of a product claimed to be 99.02per cent natural, with its sturdy

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

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R.S. No.

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

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116

ABB Robotics

31

117

ATI Industrial Automation

34

103

Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd

2 17

111

CHEP

21

106

Emerson Industrial Automation

7

104

Harlund Industries Ltd.

5

105

Krones Machinery Inc.

5

113

Multivac Canada

27

Advertising

112

Nordson

23

Title

101

Plan Automation

IFC

Company Name

please

108

Robert Reiser & Co. Inc.

15

107

Schneider Electric

115

Schneider Packaging

contact: 416-510-5198

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9 25

Equipment Co. Inc. SEW-Eurodrive Co. of Canada

38

110

UniTrak Corporation Ltd.

21

102

VideoJet Technologies Canada

113

Weber Labels and Labeling

1 29

JUNE 2014

CIRCLE THE R.S. NO. THAT MATCHES THE NUMBER ON THE ADVERTISEMENT OR ARTICLE OF INTEREST. FAX THIS BACK TO US AT (416) 510-5140 Name

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118

Noelle Stapinsky is a freelance writer and photojournalist living in Huntsville, Ont.

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Bosch Packaging

on Classified

With the Canadian beer-drinking season kicking into high gear, I’m happy to report now being fully prepared for the festivities, having recently purchased the new 1.89-liter Genuine Growler glass container of beer from Lake of Bays Brewing Co. of Baysville, Ont. Located in Ontario’s famed Muskoka summer cottage country, the craft brewer is a mainstay at the popular Griffin Session Toronto and Muskoka Beer Festival events, and its somewhat belated entry into the growler segment is welcomed with open arms—both as a novelty item, at least for yours truly, and as a clever way to build brand loyalty.

Holding the equivalent of a six-pack of beer, the tinted-glass vessel can be eas-ily refilled with just about any brand of beer on the brewer’s premises for a very reasonable price. Outfitted with a suregrip handle, the jug is initially sold with a handy information tag describing proper cleaning techniques prior to the next refill—promising to keep each new refill fresh for at least 48 hours. Dating way back to the mid-1800s—before beer was produced in sufficient quantities to be economical—the growler was a handy replacement from the far less hygienic buckets or glass jars that pub patrons used to carry beer home back then, and it’s nice to see this time-honored form of packaging getting its due from independent craft brewers right across North America. “Your growler’s hygiene is your responsibility,” the brand’s product tag proudly states, and we are happy to oblige.

FREE

109

information

structural design making it a perfect candidate for multiple product refills long after the initial use.

Photos by Noelle Stapinsky

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