Rovema - Going further with sustainable packaging technologies

ROVEMA

GOING FURTHER WITH SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING TECHNOLOGIES POWERED BY INSIDE FOOD & DRINK & INSIDE INDUSTRY

ROVEMA

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Rovema is the industry specialist in packaging machines and an international technology leader in the equipment business. With an agile approach to clients’ needs, the German company takes a holistic approach to the modern circular economy, taking into account the environment, the market, the product and the packaging, ensuring efficient and top-of-the-line designs that fully embrace innovation and new technologies. Article by Andy Probert.

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oday, the name Rovema continues to resonate with a widelyheld excellent reputation throughout the packaging world as much as it did in the 1960s, when it made spectacular advances with the invention of the first vertical form fill and seal (VFFS) machine with rotating belts.

Rovema is now a significant specialist in packaging machines and an international technology leader in the equipment business. Almost all leading branded goods manufacturers in the food and non-food sector pack with Rovema’s innovative technology.

Holistic approach At production sites in Fernwald and Reiskirchen in Germany, Rovema manufactures systems for the vertical primary packaging of food and non-food products, for packaging in cartons or shelfready, and transport-optimised end-of-line packaging. With subsidiaries and agencies worldwide, the company, which generated around €127 million in sales in 2020, is now present in more than 50 countries.

Rovema offers a wide portfolio for the packing industry.

These include dosing systems with volumetric, gravimetric and combined operating principles; vertical form fill and seal machines with an intermittent and continuous mode of operation; block or brick pack machines (Form Fill Seal machines with downstream systems for bag and bag closure designs); and cartoning machines (vertical and horizontal end load).

Finally, packaging machines and packaging lines and systems that integrate all devices or technologies into turnkey systems are also offered.

Ingo Hamel, Rovema’s Head of Innovation and R&D, said the company’s systems suit the complex demands of a modern circular economy.

“We think holistically, taking into account the environment, the market, the product and the packaging. We offer a sustainable solution that fits the characteristics of the product to be packed, and its demands in logistics, packaging material, shelf life, and energy efficiency.”

Rovema actively searches for possibilities to save packaging materials and has prepared machines to process very thin packaging materials.

“With profound application expertise, innovative approaches and new technologies, we find the optimum packaging solutions for our clients,” added Mr Hamel. “Custom-fit and individual, they enable us to secure competitive advantages.

“With our global network, we are on-site for clients and offer decade’ of support throughout a system’s entire machine life. We offer various retrofits and modifications for existing machines that allow an adaptation to new demands, for example, for paper materials.”

Machine packaging in its DNA Indeed, Rovema does not shy away from developing pioneering technologies built to last. 30 years after the first VFFS machine, the company introduced the first Stabilo-Seal pouches patents forming on the filling tube, and later at the reel carrier.

A great advantage in output rate for the coffee industry and ideal for processing mono-materials, the Stabilo seal module for the reel carrier also allows the reduction of the machine height Inside Food & Drink

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ROVEMA

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ROVEMA BVC 260 vertical Form, Fill and Seal machine

and a gentler packaging of products. Product drop height and auger length can also be optimised.

In 1999, Rovema developed Sense and Seal technology, the most accurate product detection during the sealing process and then successfully introduced the BVC series. This BVC machine was honoured to win the German Packaging Award 2014. Equipped with Premiumseal technology, it sets the sealing force at the HMI and delivers additional flexibility to alter the sealing pressure along the sealing process according to the settings the material requires.

In 2022, Rovema will launch the new valve applicator for button valves.

Over the last five years, the 700-strong company became part of the Haniel Group, developed a new 3,300 sqm production hall at Fernwald, invested in expanding its production capacities and introduced a complete ERP system and a modern CRM. It has also acquired DL Packaging to strengthen second life and retrofit business; bought Hassia India as a reliable service and assembly location; expanded the Life Cycle Service concept for Africa and Asia; and in 2021 acquired Inno-tech GmbH to expand its competencies for the frozen food and fresh produce sectors.

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A cup of quality Mr Hamel said Rovema had provided more than 500 coffee packaging machines to the sector, underlining its competencies and experience in the industry.

“We know how to pack coffee, and that has been one of many key strengths. The replacement of the traditional vacuum pack with the sealed pack in the 1990s gave Rovema a lot of application know-how in the coffee industry for which we have been present for at least 40 years.

“What we have done in the last couple of years is to look at the sustainability factor. We have spoken and worked with film producers who offer paper packaging with a barrier inside, which is entirely sustainable and biodegradable.”

Mr Hamel confirmed Rovema is not only focusing on the paper materials but other materials too.

“When we started with our testing of alternative packaging materials, we soon found out that we need an improved valve applicator to meet speed demands in coffee packaging. New materials need longer weld times, so the applicator has been re-designed so they now allow packing at a faster speed while having a longer sealing window to meet packaging material demands.

The

steps of seam quality testing

“We focus on the sealing technologies, as well as the folding process of the side tools. It has always been one of our strengths and helps to provide total control of the sealing process – not only for paper but for mono-materials, as they need the longest weld time possible.”

He said: “We have worked on the serration of our sealing tools and the design of the jaws to enable an even temperature distribution. We go further, as we have sought to integrate third-party components for the sealing tools to benchmark our sealing tools.”

According to Mr Hamel, the staff at Rovema discovered the importance of having very stable temperature controls and longweld times for mono-materials and paper.

“These findings are spoken about transparently between us, the film producer and the client, to ensure we give the bestin-class machine. We are completely flexible in our approach and adapt our development, particularly in coffee, to the consumers’ requirements.”

Until now, coffee beans have been packed in classic PET/aluminium composite packaging materials due to their high barrier requirements. But Rovema’s tested polypropylene packaging material offers excellent aroma protection combined with a fat, oil and oxygen barrier and can be fully recycled as a mono packaging material. Additional light protection through metallisation is available as an option.

Mr Hamel said: “We build our own dosing systems and are able to dose, for example, ground coffee and coffee beans. One of the points why consumers buy our machines is because we have a brickpack machine, the SBS. We are the leader in SBS brick pack machines in the market, offering more than 30 different top shapes, from a gable top to a brick pack.

“What certainly gave us an advantage in the coffee industry is that we offered the first SBS brickpack machine which had a fully automatic 3D changeover in width, length and height of the pack on the system’s conveyor section. Versatility and flexibility enable our machines to adapt to industry trends and consumers’ demands.”

Sustainable focus Mr Hamel said the company’s efficient, innovative and sustainable packaging solutions have contributed to the global supply of safe, hygienically packaged food for decades.

By joining the United Nations Global Compact in 2020, Rovema officially committed to integrating ten principles from human rights, labour standards, environmental protection, to anti-corruption in its corporate strategy and reporting annually on its progress.

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WIPF AG Wipf AG has been developing and producing high-barrier packaging films and pouches for the food, pharmaceutical and non-food industries for more than 100 years. Thanks to Swiss engineering skills and a state-of-the-art production facility, Wipf also supplies disposable degassing valves for a wide range of applications under the WICOVALVE® brand. In the coffee valves market, Wipf AG is the quality leader and recognised by major coffee roasters worldwide. The product range also includes sustainable solutions such as monomaterial laminates, recyclable PE and PP valves, and certified bio compostable valves. editorial mention

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ROVEMA

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PROFILE

“Sustainability is an elementary part of Rovema’s corporate strategy, and that has already secured competitive advantages and growth opportunities for us today,” he added.

“It is a particular concern of ours to not only underline the importance we attach to sustainability at a product level but in our cultural interaction and to constantly drive forward the diverse opportunities for change with clear targets.”

Annual progress reports describe Rovema’s approaches and measures to continuously improve the integration of the Global Compact and its principles into its business strategy, corporate culture, and daily operations.

Mr Hamel said the business was fully mobilising to meet the challenges of today and the future – notably new packaging materials and the higher demand for sustainable packaging solutions.

“We are more agile and have been preparing our machines for maximum flexibility and speed for decades. This enables us to meet new expectations quicker and more reliably.”

Rovema undertakes more than 130 packaging material tests annually at its in-house technical centre in close cooperation with customers and packaging material suppliers.

“We seek alternative sustainable packaging materials in the application test,” Mr Hamel explained. “Finding the suitable packaging material for the product is rarely possible without the manufacturers of the packaging materials and their in-depth expertise.”

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The new Rovema button valve applicator allows higher output rates and a calmer film run for longer bag shapes. It is also prepared for more flexible sealing times when applying button valve to new alternative packaging materials

Rovema continues to test a variety of alternative packaging materials for coffee and other fatty products, with some positive alternatives. Four alternatives include coffee beans in polypropylene (PP) with EVOH oxygen barrier; ground coffee safely packed with particularly thin PP packaging material; coffee powder in PE Mono material; and coffee powder packed in poly-olefin composite with a sealing medium made of 85% renewable raw materials.

Rovema said not all of the options currently offer flexibility in bag design, but issues of product protection seem to be solved even with the sustainable variants.

At the IPACK-IMA 2022 trade fair held in Milan in early May, ROVEMA presented a fully recyclable coffee pack with button valve that can also be conveniently retrofitted to existing BVC machines. Both valve and the packing material itself are made of a polypropylene mono-material.

Wipf's recyclable WICOVALVE® W109PP disposable degassing valve for bean-to-cup coffee is ultrasonically applied to Hatzopoulos all-PP (89my) packaging film designed for recycling, based on the converter’s X-CYCLE TM technology.

On the challenges and opportunities of packaging demanding products in plastic and paper, Mr Hamel said: “The demand for sustainable packaging solutions is growing continuously.

Consumers today like to buy their products in paper packaging, which presents packaging machine manufacturers with a number of challenges.

“Rovema has been working on packaging solutions made of alternative packaging materials for years and is continuously developing and testing.”

For the past three years, the company has been using a machine in its test centre dedicated to paper packaging material testing.

Here, tests are undertaken on the latest developments based on specific customer requests or in direct cooperation with packaging material manufacturers.

“This way, we can support customers at an early stage in the decision-making process for machine-compatible paper packaging materials,” Mr Hamel continued. “A pack is only as good as its seal, so we continuously develop them further, such as through unique geometries, better heat distribution and heat transfer of the sealing tools.

“The optimised motion control of the sealing and side gusseting tools as well as the sealing force control of our machines enable us to realise the longest possible sealing times per cycle.

We also consistently adapt our machine software to the special requirements of new packaging materials.”

Rovema boasts a large selection of sealing tools at its technical centre for this type of application test. As part of these tests, staff also coordinate with packaging material manufacturers to make the respective packaging materials even more efficient to process on machines.

The company also has a global service presence and even buys back machines to retrofit with new technology.

Asserting its dedication to detail and clients with its range of turnkey solutions, systems, testing facilities, and offering a local presence, Mr Hamel commented Rovema would continue to push forward and break new ground in the packaging field.

He concluded: “While modern corporate values and an open and fair company culture form the basis for our sustainable successes and healthy economic growth, Rovema is also determined to position itself as a leading global partner of sustainable packaging solutions.” n

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rovema.com sales@rovema.com +44 1296 31 04 90 ROVEMA North America Inc. Norcross, GA 30093