Apple growers have been demanding a flow wrapping machine that can wrap apples without a tray, with a high quality pack appearance and in a format to suit supermarket shelves. However apples are notoriously easy to damage and bruise so have to be handled very carefully “soft packaging” as it’s known in the trade. Redpacks P325E-FI trayless apple flow wrapping machine with “Frictionless In-feed” has been specifically designed to pack apples at relatively high speeds (up to 60 ppm for a 6 pack) with elimination of bruising. The finished pack presentation is of high quality to carry the retailers brand image and to provide eye appeal to the consumer.
According to Redpacks Marketing Manager: “Apple Packers are very excited about the new P325E-FI frictionless infeed flow wrapper because it doesn’t damage the fruit, can be easily adjusted for different size packs, doubles their packaging speed and saves them money on their packaging materials. You could say that it’s a real windfall for them”
The P325E-FI has as standard a 3.5 metre long product in-feed with driven side belts, carrying slats and soft flexible front and back product pushers. The combined effect of these features is to form a product collation pocket that provides a soft bed to nestle the apples. This ensures that the apple collation is protected and prevents bruising as the apples are transported to the wrapping module.
Transferring fruit from the in-feed to the wrapping film can be tricky so Redpack have added a belt unit that ensures that the collation is not disturbed and is carried to the film as gently as possible. In combination with this the machine has an overhead mechanism with “soft” paddles to retain the collation in the film tube as it progresses through the machine seam crimp module and a conveyor system is included at the end crimps to carry the product through the end crimp sealing jaws. The wrapping operation is carried out with minimum disturbance of the collation and minimum movement of the fruit thus minimising damage and bruising of the apples.
A further Unique design feature of the P325E-FI enables the product in-feed pitch to be adjusted without additional change parts. By turning an adjusting handle the front and back product pushers move apart to give a wider product collation pocket to accommodate 2-4-6-8-10 apple collations without having to use change parts. So it’s quick and easy for your pack house staff to change the fruit collation size and to adjust the pocket to suit product grading. For further versatility the P325E-FI can be easily adjusted to allow fruit on a tray to be wrapped including in line “Hot Dog” packs.
Of course it’s not just apples that can be wrapped because pretty much any graded top fruit, pears, plumbs, kiwi, oranges, lemons, etc. etc. can be accommodated. And if the P325E-FI is not the perfect flow wrapper for your particular job Redpack have a range of machines and in-feed systems that can be tailored to your specific requirements pretty much for all reasons and seasons, so it is fair to say that “Whatever the size and shape Redpack have it flowrapped”.