27 minute read
PACK EX Toronto
Show And Tell
As a key part of the multi-show ADM Toronto exhibition at the Toronto Congress Centre next month, PACK EX Toronto is Canada’s only dedicated packaging event this year for packaging suppliers and buyers to discover innovation, engineer new technology, and build a better tomorrow.
Scheduled to run Nov. 9-11, 2021, this year’s PACK EX Toronto will o er an exceptional opportunity to hook up with the most innovative packaging suppliers, connect with experts on the latest food-and-beverage trends, and meet with the industry leaders providing cutting-edge design, process, materials and solutions to address today’s productivity challenges and mandates to cut packaging waste.
Here are some of the packaging technologies that will; be displayed at next month’s PACK EX Toronto exhibition:
PUTTING FOOD ON THE TABLE
Handtmann Canada Ltd. will unveil the full range of the company’s latest food processing innovations, including: * The VF 828 S vacuum filler featuring the technical advances of larger VF 800 models, including metal detectable non-metallic parts, a hygienic design with no microbial traps, and fast-drain external surfaces with simple controls and gram-accurate portioning at up to 1,200-ppm (pieces per minute). * The SE442-1 rotary cutting solution for bakeries, featuring the precision of servo-driven dividing with better than +/-1% accuracy at up to 200-ppm, making it highly e cient for pizza and dough operations with ample flexibility to enable bakers to produce a range of premium products on one unit. * The innovative FS525 all-in-one forming/ cutting system with a simple three-minute conversion from hole-plate 3D product forming to rotary cutting for di erent product cross-sections. • The new FS552 valve-free return suction depositing system, designed to deliver excellent accuracy with smooth and chunky products at temperatures of up to 90°C. * The award-winning INOTEC emulsifying design featuring a variety of performance, safety, and sanitation innovations, including a self-adjusting radial cutting set, advanced temperature control, and automated process monitoring. According to Handtmann, the automatic lNOTEC soft-start feature eliminates ‘running dry’ and extends blade life, while the cutting set self-adjusts every 15 seconds during operation to ensure consistent precision, simplify operation, and reduce parts costs.
Booth #1421
QUICK WORK
Full-service label printing provider AstroNova, Inc. will host live demonstrations of printing and labeling products that will include: • The QuickLabel QL-120X premium
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CMYK+White toner-based table-top printer that enables brand-owners to create high-quality labels with the utmost durability, ensure a competitive cost of ownership, and set their brand apart with vibrant, impactful product labels. • The TrojanLabel T2-C, said to be first-ever high-capacity, high-volume table-top label press capable of delivering precision over long runs to produce consistent high-volumes in 24/7 production environment.
Booth #1159
Industry 4.0
PUMP UP THE VOLUME!
Busch Vacuum Technics Inc. will showcase the company’s new connected R5 PLUS series vacuum pump, deigned to bring the proven Busch rotary vane vacuum technology to the next level with Industry 4.0 connectivity and highly innovative features that include: • Advanced control functionalities; • Condition monitoring; • Integration to any standard control system; • Two operating modes: pressure control and constant speed; • Large color touchscreen; • Intuitive menu navigation.
According to Busch, the pump’s integrated variable speed drive allows adjustments of the motor frequency from 35 Hz to 70 Hz, enabling energy savings of up to 50 per cent compared to unregulated vacuum pumps.
The pump’s di erent operating modes ensure that the R5 PLUS series vacuum pumps always run in optimal operating condition, while allowing for the maintenance intervals to be planned more precisely by permanently recording the condition of the components, the event history, and the running hours.
Booth #1335
THE ART OF DETECTION
Contaminant detection and product sorting technologies experts Sesotec Canada Ltd. will display the company’s leading-edge INTUITY metal detector and the RAYCON D+ X-ray product inspection system.
Equipped with the new INTUITY metal detection coil and multi-simultaneous-frequency technology, the INTUITY reaches a scanning sensitivity that is up to 50-percent higher than in other systems on the market, according to the company, while the INTUITY CONTROL user interface offers greatly improved ease of operation.
For its part, Sesotec’s RAYCON D+ X-ray inspection system surpasses the specifications of internationally applicable standards such as IFS and BRC in parts by up to 400 per cent, with and a rate of faulty detections of less than 0.01 per cent setting new standards in respect to detection accuracy, application flexibility, and ease of operation.
Booth #1445
THE EARLY REISER
Reiser (Canada) Ltd. will conduct live demonstrations of the company’s wide range of food
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packaging equipment and processing-to-packaging solutions, with machines on display at the Reiser booth to be fully operational and running real or simulated products. The company’s vast exhibit will feature: • Reiser horizontal form/fill/seal packaging systems to produce vacuum, modified-atmosphere (MAP) and vacuum-skin packages from flexible and semi-rigid materials. Compact configurations are available for lower production requirements, as well as high-performance machines capable of the industry’s fastest production speeds. • Ross tray-sealers, designed to produce modified atmosphere, vacuum-skin and lid-only packages from pre-formed trays for the packaging of fresh, refrigerated and frozen food products at a full range of output rates, while ensuring superior seal integrity and extended shelf-life. • Fabbri stretch film wrappers, designed to use stretch film to package fresh food in preformed trays and providing a “just packed” appearance. The Fabbri stretch film wrappers employ four-way stretch technology to produce tight, over-the-flange, wrinkle-free packages with securely sealed bottoms and superb case presentation. • The Supervac range of automatic belt vacuum chamber packaging machines, shrink tanks, chill tanks and dryers, all
designed to produce attractive packages that feature two superior seals to eliminate leakers, rework and returns.
Booth #1203
SHINE A LIGHT
Pilz Automation Safety Canada L.P. will showcase the PSENopt II Type 3 safety light curtains to obtain formal approval from the global test organization Underwriters Laboratories (UL) to certify that they meet national safety standards in both Canada and the U.S.
Designed to ensure that it is safe to intervene in the production process, the PSENopt II safety light curtains provide optimal finger, hand and body protection in accordance with EN/IEC 61496- 1/-2 safety standard for electro-sensitive protective equipment, while o ering superior shock resistance for use in rugged industrial environments.
Ideal for use in robot applications, as well as on packaging machines and presses, the PSENopt II light curtains o er increased flexibility in terms of their point-of-use to provide a safe, economical and complete solution for all industries and application areas.
Booth #826
TAKING SIDES
WeighPack Systems Inc., part of the Paxiom Group of companies, will showcase its brand new Swifty Bagger Side Load automatic bagging machine o ering new value-added features for customers that require product orientation within a pre-made pouch.
This compact machine can load pillow and gusseted bags ranging in length from 150- to 350-mm and in width from 120- to 260-mm, either with zippers or without.
Additional options are available to provide a nitrogen gas flush for customers looking to increase product shelf-life, as well as a custom labeling configuration for printing expiration dates on the bags.
A perfect solution for products that are required to be standing up “soldier-style” within a pouch or single items, this automated solution can be used in food packaging consumer goods, healthcare, cosmetics, personal hygiene, hardware and many other such products.
According to WeighPack Systems, the Swifty Bagger Side Load bagging system is economical and easy-to-clean, while provides easy accessibility for cleanins and allowing the operator to monitor the entire filling process from the front of the machine.
Moreover, an accumulation table can be positioned prior to manual case-packing or, alternatively, its can also be fully integrated with complete end-of-line systems to include case erectors, pick-and-place case-packers, drop packers, case sealers and palletizers.
Booth #1215
SMARTER MACHINES
Having recently joined FANUC’s Authorized System Integrator program, Harpak-ULMA Packaging, LLC will unveil the new TFS500 smart connected thermoforming machines incorporating FANUC brand robots for fully automated product loading and case-packing and Rockwell Automation’s flagship Allen-Bradley series controls, along with Vuforia and Thingworx software suites for Augmented Reality applications.
As part of the company’s new Customer Experience Centers (CXEs) program, the new IIoT-enabled solutions are the literal foundation of digital transformation in packaging operations, both in data acquisition and for contextualizing real-time operating information used to manage performance, according to the company.
“There is simply no more e ective way to convey what smart, connected packaging assets bring to the table,” says Harpack-ULMA’s chief executive o cer Kevin Roach.
“These are not pie-in-the-sky visions of what we could do—they are concrete, operational examples of what we already do,” Roach states. “No solution is an island unto itself [and] adding FANUC America, the leading supplier of robots and automation, to our CXEs puts an exclamation point on it for our customers.”
Both #1667
BEAT OF THE DRUMS
Inovadrum, a division of Technologie Inovaweld (Canada) specializing in the manufacturing of laser-welded stainless-steel drums and barrels for the food, chemical, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industry applications, will exhibit its full range of bulk containers—o ered in more than 45 models with optimized and customizable designs—to accommodate volumes ranging from 16 to 210 gallons.
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Booth #1139
KEEP ON ROLLING!
VC999 Canada Ltd. will unveil a brand new R Series rollstock thermoform packaging machine that features many new breakthrough features to enhance packaging line productivity, while reducing labor and maintenance costs.
Incorporating a special lift design optimized to increase production speeds, advanced controls with faster processing speeds, and strategic placement of valvea to increase machine reaction speeds, the new machine features angled surfaces to eliminate pooling, washdown-rated igus bearings, and chain guides with nylon stando s for an exceptional hygienic design that can be customized to suit the end-users’ individual application needs and requirements.
Booth #1221
FULL INSPECTION
Food safety inspection systems experts METTLER TOLEDO Inc. will conduct live demonstrations of the company’s comprehensive range of product inspection systems, including checkweighers, metal detectors, vision systems and X-ray inspection systems,.
Designed to ensure brand protection, detect solid contaminants, confirm component content, inspect closures, measure fill levels and verify product weights, the METTLER TOLEDO systems o er optimal solutions to accelerating and automating work processes, improving product quality, increasing process e ciency, and supporting compliance with leading industry standards, regulations and legislations.
Booth #1521
A Time for Change
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314 Pure Cannabis president and chief executive o icer Clayton Duguid (left) and Paxiom Group’s customer service manager Mark Conforti strike a happy pose alongside some of the high-quality cannabis products produced by the fast-growing craft cannabis producer in Crossfield, Alta.
PURE INTENTIONS
Packaging automation helps enterprising craft cannabis producer respond to unfolding new market trends in real time By George Guidoni, Editor Photos By Asim Overstands
For a young and disruptive market like recreational cannabis, there are undoubtedly countless twists and turns to come before the nascent industry starts resembling other mainstream CPG (consumer packaged goods) sectors in terms of market maturity, pecking order and broader public acceptance.
But if the early trends are anything to go by, being an early bird in terms of product quality and manufacturing competence is a win-win recipe that has already helped companies like 314 Pure
Cannabis put themselves on the map with supreme confidence and style well befitting a $2.6-billion industry with enormous growth potential.
Started up in 2019 a short drive north of Calgary in Crossfield, Alta., the privately owned company is a licensed craft cannabis producer using proprietary hydroponic growing and cultivation methods to produce high-quality flower cannabis products retailed through government-approved cannabis dispensaries across western Canada and Ontario.
Currently operating out of a custom-built, 42,500-square-foot facility designed to meet all the pertinent Health Canada regulations and to comply with the EU GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards, the Crossfield operation houses five state-of-the-art flower rooms
to grow eight core strains of high-quality marijuana buds, with current capacity to produce 2,000 kilograms of finished product—retailed in flexible resealable pouches or as pre-rolled filtered cones (joints) that are sold individually or in multipacks of five or 10 cones per box.
“Our output is actually much higher than 2,000 kilograms, which means we still rely on many of our LP partners in the area for supply,” says 314 Pure president and chief executive o cer Clayton Duguid, a former building industry professional who was drawn to the budding cannabis business soon after the federal government announced its intention to legalize cannabis for recreational use, which finally happened in the October of 2019.
“I think the cannabis market is maturing, and the products are quickly evolving in quality today,” says Duguid, one of three company co-founders at the helm of a group of about 50 private investors contributing the all-important start-up capital to get the venture o the ground.
As Duguid explains, the recreational market has also matured quickly enough to become price-competitive, and in some instances less expensive, than cannabis sold on the black market—thereby delivering on one of the key arguments and justifications for the eventual passage of the historic Bill C-45 legislation in November of 2018.
“Like many other people I used to be sceptical about marijuana ever becoming completely legal in Canada,” Duguid remarks, “but once it became a key election promise and then a real government policy, it presents an attractive business opportunity for many people across the country, and especially here in Alberta.”
To di erentiate itself from the competition, the company worked with branding services group Blackwater Design and Marketing to incorporate the number 314 into the brand name as a playful nod to the molecular weight of the principal psychoactive cannabis ingredient THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), which is technic-
Clockwise from left Stand-up pouches with child-resistant closures used to package dry cannabis flower buds; the full turnkey bagging system anchored by WeighPack’s Swifty Bagger Mini bagging machine; bulk cannabis flower being dispensed into PrimoCombi scale buckets.
Clockwise from left A plant employee preparing to load pre-made pouches onto the Swifty Bagger Mini machine; machine operator loading pre-made paper cones onto the front end of the eight-channel JuanaRoll machine; rows of bulk Futurolla pre-made paper cones taken out of the box for loading the JuanaRoll machine.
ally defined as 314.469 g/mol.
“We definitely wanted to use the word “pure” in our company name,” Duguid reflects, “but it was just too generic to stand up on its own, so adding 314 was a nice piece of branding to position ourselves as a craft cannabis producer.”
As Duguid explains, craft cannabis production di ers significantly from mass-scale harvesting by providing individual plants with much more physical space and time to reach full maturity and optimal THC content, resulting in superior buds.
“We grow 176 plants in a 2,600-quarefoot grow-room, whereas a typical largescale factory would grow 3,000 to 4,000 plants in similar space,” Duguid explains.
“Also we let our plant grow their full height of six to eight feet, and we monitor each plant all the time, letting them fully grow and flower in vegetative state until they’re ready to harvest.”
According to Duguid, this extra care, attention and patience results in high-quality buds, of various targeted potencies, which the company markets under three main core brands, including: • Poolboy, described as a fun value brand with 16- to 24 percent THC content; • 314Pure Premium, a premium-quality product with 26- to 30-percent THC content; • Dad Hash, high-purity cannabis extracts with 45- to 50-percent THC content.
With its product portfolio currently comprising 17 SKU (stock-keeping units), 314 Pure Cannabis is exceptionally well positioned to keep expanding in tune with the growing market for recreational cannabis, according to Duguid.
In fact, the company has recently commenced a 60,000-square-foot plant expansion at the 16-acre site that will eventually house another 270,000 square feet of production space—raising its annual manufacturing capacity to over 35,000 kilograms.
In the meantime, however, Duguid and his production team are focusing on optimizing and automating the company’s packaging operations in order to support the expected growth in volumes with a highly e cient process geared to ensure optimal product protection, consumer convenience, and high throughput speeds.
To achieve these goals, 314 Pure has formed a close business relationship with Montreal-based packaging machinery specialists WeighPack Systems Inc. and the Paxiom Group.
In early 2020, WeighPack supplied the 314 Pure operation with a turnkey packaging solution—comprising a Swifty Bagger Mini bagging machine, a PrimoCombi multihead weighing scale, and an automatic WeightCheQ checkweigher—to completely automate the process of filling pre-made pouches with 3.5- and seven-gram portions of dried flower, which was at the time all done by hand.
Designed specifically for processing compact bag sizes, the Swifty Bagger Mini stand-up pouch filling and sealing machine opens, fills and seals a variety of pre-made resalable stand-up pouches.
Occupying less than 10 square feet of space, the Mini bagger is constructed
Housed in a separate temperature-controlled cleanroom within the Crossfield facility, the JuanaRoll machine is equipped with the latest automation technologies, including the touchscreen HMI (human-machine interface) terminal above, to enable the machine to run with only two operators.
with stainless steel and is designed for easy service and maintenance.
Manufactured at WeighPack’s state-ofthe-art 70,000-square-foot production facility in Montreal, the machine’s adjustable bag magazine provides consistent bag feeding to ensure that the pre-made pouches enter the machine perfectly square—resulting in strong, high-quality seals.
The Swifty Bagger Mini installed at the Crossfield plan is integrated with the PrimoCombi multihead weigh scale positioned directly above the Mini bagger, dispensing precise amounts of dried flower buds from its 14 0.5-liter buckets to the bagger below.
Once the PrimoCombi scale is filled with bulk product at the center, its starts to vibrate to loosen the buds from the center cone to the individual vibratory feeder pans. These feeder pans the transport product to the weigh buckets to be weighed and measured.
Once weighed, the PrimoCombi determines which buckets equal a near-perfect match, locks them in, and then triggers the buckets to dispense at the same time to the Swifty Bagger Mini machine below.
Accurate to within 0.01-gram of target weight, as verified by the integrated WeightCheQ checkweigher positioned in the center of the bagger, the programmable PrimoCombi scale allows 314 Pure to use the same pre-made bags for packaging both 3.5-gram and seven-gram portions, simultaneously if required, to provide invaluable operational flexibility.
“The WeighPack machines have allowed us to package our product in 3.5- and seven-gram bags flawlessly,” Duguid states. “It uses suction cups to open the bag and insert 3.5 grams of product inside, seal the bag and spit it out … all we have to do then is tax-stamp the bag.
Featuring a unique inline design, the eight-channel JuanaRoll installed at the Crossfield plant can produce up to 50 pre-rolled cones of uniform size and weight in one single pass whereby the machine automatically fills, compacts, tamps, twists, trims and ejects the finished pre-roll into the plastic basket below at the machine’s back end.
“We do approximately 15 bags a minute with this machine,” says Duguid. “Its very easy to use, it’s very interchangeable, and it’s easy to adapt.
“It’s built to do di erent things, so it can be easily scaled up for use on a bottling line, or for bigger-sized bags. It is very flexible.”
In similar vein, Duguid is quick to praise the exacting accuracy of the PrimoCombi’s scale, along with the real-time status report the system displays on three large screens via its HMI (human-machine interface) to ensure optimal filling accuracy each step of the way.
As Duguid explains: “The PrimoCombi uses three bright big digital screens: the digital mode, which displays the target weight that was just dispensed; the graphic mode that uses a color scheme to show the operator one status; and the camera mode, which displays the product coming through.”
Adds Duguid: “Another great feature of the PrimoCombi HMI is the Cycle History function, which displays the target weight, the actual weight dispensed, and how many (bucket) heads were used to complete the cycle.”
As Duguid points out, unerring weight accuracy is a vitally important pre-requisite for the 314 Pure operation, which also double-checks the weight of every 100th bag coming o the bagging machine to ensure the weight falls within the five- or 10–percent tolerance limits as required by provincial and federal authorities.
While automating the plant’s bagging line was a massively important accomplishment for the 314 Pure Cannabis operation, it soon became apparent to company management that the recreational market has been rapidly changing in terms of growing consumer preference for pre-rolled, ready-to-smoke filtered cones (joints), at the expense of dry flower buds they would have to roll up themselves.
“When our company started out about 80 per cent of the product we were shipping out was dried flower,” Duguid relates.
“But we have seen rapid maturity in the market, with customers pushing for high-quality pre-rolls, and we needed respond to this trend quickly,” he explains.
“So we turned to Paxiom again to help us pivot a lot of our SKUs into the high-quality pre-rolled segment of the market, to see if they had a machine that could do it at large volumes.”
Also manufactured by WeighPack in Montreal, the highly innovative JuanaRoll automatic pre-roll machine turned out to be the perfect solution for 314 Pure, which took time to evaluate many other
pre-roll machine options available on the market.
Already in operation at many of the best-known cannabis brands in the world, several large LP producers across North America, the JuanaRoll was developed as an automated solution to replace manual hand-rolling, which is said to be one of the most labour-intensive and time-consuming manual processes keeping many LPs (licensed producers) from achieving adequate productivity levels they need to compete.
Available in four-, six- and eight-channel configurations, the high-speed JuanaRoll machine features an easy-to-load cone magazine, an integrated PreCheQ checkweigher, and special stations for compacting, tamping and twisting/trimming, along with value-added standard features such as no-cone/no-fill detection, cone-open camera vision system, and free online technical support.
For Duguid, who traveled to the WeighPack factory to see the machine in real-life demonstration, the speed and accuracy attributes o ered by the JuanaRoll machine far outweighed the significant cost of the initial investment.
“It really is the Rolls Royce of all the pre-roll machines out there,” says Duguid, adding the JuanaRoll machine has worked flawlessly at the 314 Pure plant since coming online this past January, producing tens of thousands of uniform half-gram pre-rolled cones with virtually negligible deviations in target weight.
“It has enabled us to reassign 20 people to other more productive tasks at the plant,” says Duguid, citing the machine’s high-end craftsmanship that enables it to work with bulk ground cannabis of di erent levels of moisture and stickiness.
“We can do 50 pre-rolls a minute on this machine,” Duguid extols, “which is just fantastic.
“But the really big thing for us is that we are able to use real flower that we grind down to desired size; we do not use any ‘shake’ product.
“Being able to put that sticky real flower product through the machine enables us to produce a higher-quality product for our customers,” Duguid says.
“There are many di erent strains of cannabis out there that all react di erently when being processed..
“There are also external factors, like temperature and humidity, which also have an e ect on the product composition.
“But we have found a way to make the JuanaRoll machine account for all these variables,” Duguid says, “and that was one of the key selling features for 314 Pure Cannabis.”
As Duguid recalls, “When we were investigating the pre-roll machines in the market we noticed that the definitely a lot of a lot of supply out there.
“But when we got to WeighPack, we were really impressed by the quality of manufacturing that goes into their machines,” he says.
“Being all about product quality ourselves, that was enough for us to pull the trigger on buying this machine.”
Duguid says that adding the JuanaRoll machine has had a profound impact on the company’s product portfolio by making pre-rolled cones—sold individually on in five-pack and 10-pack rigid plastic containers—its bestselling product type by far.
“Pre-rolls now account for about 80 per cent of our production,” he says, “with bags at about 10 per cent and extracts for the remaining 10 per cent.
“That is just the way the market is going right now: consumer want the onthe-go convenience and mobility that pre-rolls o er,” he states.
“An as the market continues to evolve in this direction,” he concludes, “we look forward to work with Paxiom to continue to grow and expand our brand s across Canada to become one of the leaders in the craft cannabis market.”
Clockwise from left Pre-rolled cones undergo the final visual inception by 314 Pure Cannabis sta while being counted and grouped for packing inside rigid plastic containers containing fire of 10 cones each; Clayton Duguid checking up on the blossoming buds inside of the company’s five indoor grow-rooms; Duguid displays some of the company’s bestselling SKUs (stock-keeping units) produced at the Crossfield facility.
SUPPLIERS
WeighPack Systems Inc. Paxiom Group
Please see a video of the WeighPack equipment in action at the 314 Pure Cannabis processing plant in Crossfield, Alta., on Canadian Packaging TV at: www.canadianpackaging.com
