£1 Million Investment in Shelf Ready Solutions


The first of ten new Europack shrink/tray wrappers have started work in a £1 million plus makeover of end-of-line packaging at Twinings tea bag plant on Tyneside. It follows Twinings' in-depth evaluation of future market needs and will equip them with a full range of shelf ready pack options.

Pressure from supermarkets to cut in-store costs of unpacking and shelf filling, maximise product display and reduce waste disposal combined with suppliers' need to control their costs of packaging materials has driven the rapid growth of shelf ready packaging. But retail demand has gone in different directions. So Europack engineering designers built unique versatility into Twinings' new end-of-line packers.

Each machine will collate cartons and produce tight film shrinkwraps or erect minimum depth trays, load and shrinkwrap them in single or twin face packs at speeds up to 30 per minute. There are eight possible carton collations ranging from single face 1 x 4 to 2 x 6 twin shelf ready formats. Changeovers including changeparts for the tray forming tool take only 15 minutes.

Limited floor space at Twinings North Shields plant led to further innovation by Europack. Three different operations are combined to give the smallest footprint. Carton collation, tray forming and shrink wrapping all take place in one unit.

"Two Europack machines installed in January proved the 3-in-1 machine design on shrink/tray twin packs for our speciality tea range," says Twinings Project Engineering Manager Keith Darroch. "Then market demand switched once again to single face packs and we decided to invite tenders for a whole new end-of-line operation."

Eight machinery companies competed in an open tender which Twinings reduced to three - one German, one Italian and Europack. "On speed and performance, size, delivery to our time scale and cost, Europack were the best," says Keith Darroch. "The two machines installed in January last year have worked well and we know that Europack will give us what we want."

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