Q1: What are the biggest challenges currently facing the confectionery and snack industries in transitioning to more sustainable practices, and how has this trend shifted in recent years?
“When confectionery businesses look to make the transition to sustainable packaging, such as monolayer plastic or paper packaging, the biggest challenge is to ensure that, whatever pack format our customers choose, the product within the pack is protected. The infiltration of oxygen, light and microbes can significantly impact the shelf life of the product, potentially resulting in an increased amount of waste. To minimise this, it is essential to use the correct sealing technology.
“Film trials are critical when food producers make the transition to more sustainable packaging. Each film specification will have its own unique sealing temperature range, and so packaging machines must be set correctly to these temperatures for packs to seal at a given speed. If the bagmaker jaws are set too hot or too cold, the packs will not seal correctly, resulting in its rejection (for example when using inline seal testers).
“In recent years, we have seen a larger amount of sustainable packaging options come to the market, each with their own unique sealing specifications. As packaging equipment specialists, it is our responsibility to design the machinery that can handle sustainable packaging whilst lowering energy usage.
“We always recommend speaking to a packaging specialist when changing film materials to make sure that any seal integrity issues can be addressed from the beginning. We also offer free demonstrations, to determine how our weighing, packing, and inspection equipment can improve our customer’s operations and trial new packaging materials before having to make firm commitments.”
Q2: How has the push for sustainability influenced the design and implementation of automated processes in food manufacturing?
“As more businesses make the change to sustainable packaging and automation, the need for good process data to support this implementation has risen substantially. We have listened closely to the needs of our customers and innovated technology to meet their challenges.
“The need for good process data has led to the development of our new Sentinel 5.0 production monitoring software which combines machine performance monitoring with comprehensive data capture to give food manufacturers a smarter, more in-depth analysis of their entire food production line from a single workstation. With this knowledge, businesses can better understand how much energy they are using and which elements of the production and packing line needs to be changed to optimise production efficiency.
“Based on the Industry 5.0 principles of human-to-machine collaboration, this new software utilises AI technology for a deeper understanding of which packaging machines are not working at optimum efficiency, and therefore providing vital process information to make data-driven decisions. With the AI within the software, it is possible to optimise performance, without operators having to alter settings themselves. The result is better throughput, less potential for product giveaway and waste, and ultimately, better value and profit.
“We expect our customers will see immediate and significant results when incorporating Sentinel 5.0 in their day-to-day operations. Sentinel 5.0 is now available following its release at this year’s Gulfood Manufacturing exhibition in Dubai in November 2024.”
Q3: What recent innovations have you implemented in your equipment design or manufacturing processes to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions?
“Throughout recent years, we have made packaging machinery that address a variety of industry issues such as productivity, cost and sustainability.
“From a machinery perspective, the Ishida CCW-AS multihead weigher range delivers significant increases in productivity. It also comes with an enhanced hygienic design and simultaneously addresses environmental targets by achieving a 20% reduction in energy consumption compared to previous models and providing a significant saving to food manufacturers.
“To minimise waste, downtime and the potential for human error, the Ishida Auto Splice module, combined with the INSPIRA Boxmotion snack food bagmaker, automatically heat-seals separate film reels together to deliver continuous production. This process takes less than 20 seconds, meaning the Auto Splice ensures a safer and quicker film reel replacement, thus lowering downtime and film waste.”
Q4: How do you support clients in the confectionery and snack sectors to optimise their operations for sustainability when using your products?
“For each customer, our first step is to understand their current manufacturing layout, their production targets and challenges, and their requirements regarding carbon footprint savings. Once we have this information, we can recommend to our customers the optimum solution.
“For example, with Simply Roasted, an emerging baked crisps brand in the UK, the customer wanted to ensure that each pack was securely sealed, so the product remained fresh. By installing the Ishida INSPIRA snacks bagmaker, Simply Roasted was able to significantly increase production, and at the same time maintain product and pack quality and integrity. Alongside this, an Ishida checkweigher was added to confirm that each pack complied with e-pre-package weight regulations.
“Our customer was pleased with the installed equipment, with an added benefit of reduced film wastage.”
All comments are to be attributed to Andrew Green, Snacks Business Unit Manager at Ishida.