Healthy snacking is the trend. Nutritionists confirm that consumers are increasingly looking for high-quality snacks with natural ingredients. This also includes the appropriate packaging – which should be as easy to open as possible and meet the special requirements of the product. Packaging concepts based on PVDC are frequently used for sausage snacks. Now there is also a PVDC-free easy-peel solution – produced on the automatic clipping/sealing machines of Poly-clip System (Hattersheim am Main, Germany).
Poly-clip System is known for its clipping machines, which are used for a variety of sausage products. But how do you snack on a clipped sausage? How do you get the sausage out of the peel without cutting off the clip? The answer is simple. The sausage casing must be made to be opened by hand.
New packaging concepts are based on heat-sealable composite films with PE (polyethylene) and PA (polyamide). The PE outer layer with Easy-peel is required for heat sealing with an overlap seam. The internal PA ensures caliber stability. The tearing aid (easy opening) is made during production of the flat film. First, one edge of the flat film is provided with defined cuts at regular intervals. These serve as flags for tearing the film. Second, the plastic used must be produced so that it tears in a straight line around the sausage. A number of film manufacturers now make such composite films.
On the machine, the flat film is formed into a film tube using a special forming shoulder and closed over the length of the sausage via heat-sealing. The integrated clip unit securely closes the film tube with double clips. The continuous sealing seam and bacteria-proof R-ID clips achieve a 100 percent stable film closure without weak points. The consumer, however, can easily grasp the peeling aid and tear the film across the sealing seam.
For the production of such easy-open sausage snacks, an automatic sealing/clipping machine TSCA 120/160 from Poly-clip System is used. Up to 3,300 m of flat film ensure over four hours of uninterrupted production. The end of the film and clips as well as any missing output of the filling unit are automatically monitored. The TSCA’s automation also enables a high degree of process monitoring, for example, of the stored recipe parameters. The TSCA 120/160 automatically warns the operator if deviations occur. Optionally, the WS Food Standard interface is available for recording production data via the customer’s own network.