Theegarten Pactec Machinery for industrial processing of sustainable pkg

The trend towards greater sustainability continues unabated and has long since grown from a niche topic into a global movement. While political stakeholders – and, increasingly, consumers – attach significant value to more environmentally friendly packaging, the processing of these new materials continues to pose certain challenges. Theegarten-Pactec, a company from Dresden, Germany, is a key driver of innovation in this space: it is constantly refining its high-speed packaging machinery to enable producers and brand manufacturers to process sustainable packaging materials for confectionery and non-food items at industrial scale.

Despite various crises, rising costs and inflation, consumers still attach significant value to environmentally friendly packaging. According to the Sustainable Product Packaging study published in June 2023 by global consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners, as many as 62% of consumers in Germany are prepared to pay more for sustainably packaging products, up to an additional 7%. Yet, despite this willingness on the part of consumers, confectionery brand manufacturers looking to adopt more environmentally friendly packaging face challenges in other areas. This is because more sustainable materials often present a challenge in the packaging process.

Sustainable materials: recyclable but demanding
Conventional packaging involves laminating different materials such as plastics, metals and papers together to achieve an optimal combination of strength, flexibility and a barrier function to protect the product. When it comes to sustainability, however, these laminated materials present a problem: they can be difficult or even impossible to separate and thus cannot be recycled. At present, mono-materials and paper-based packaging materials are among the most commonly used alternatives and are said to offer better recyclability. However, such materials pose greater challenges during the packaging process. They can tear more easily, are more difficult to seal and sometimes have inferior folding properties.

Theegarten-Pactec aims to support producers and brand manufacturers in their quest for improved sustainability. The specialist in small-sized confectionery packaging from Dresden, Germany, is constantly developing and refining its machines with a systematic focus on processing sustainable materials at industrial scale.

Patented pre-heating line for paper-based flow packs
The company has, for example, re-engineered the FPC5 – its high-speed packaging machine for chocolate bars– to such an extent that it can now process paper-based flow packs in the conventional cold-sealing process as well as in the far more complex heat-sealing process. In fact, the machine is capable of producing flow pack packaging with integrated heat-seal capability and a pure paper content of at least 95%.

By pre-heating the seal area during the wrapping material unwinding process, the paper has a higher starting temperature, which significantly reduces the required duration of heat application by the sealing tools to the packaging in the sealing process itself. This avoids damaging the packaging and the product and allows them to pass gently through the machine. In addition, the reduced sealing time makes it possible to achieve high processing speeds of 100 m/min for paper-based packaging.