Product quality enhanced by packaging
FAGE Total yogurt is produced by a proprietary process that results in a thick texture and a creamy taste. The brand is sold in 0%-, 2%-, and 10%-cream versions in sizes from 5.3-oz cups to 35.3-oz tubs. The 5.3-oz size is offered in five flavors—honey, peach, strawberry, cherry, and blueberry—in a unique, two-compartment cup that keeps a serving of plain yogurt separate from the flavorings.
An import from Greece, the “split cup,” as it’s called by FAGE USA, “allows the consumer to bend over the side cup [of flavorings] and pour them directly onto the yogurt or eat the flavorings with the yogurt in the desired amount, rather than having them premixed,” explains McConaghy.
Both split cups and round cups are made from polypropylene and are supplied by Berry Plastics and Polytainers, respectively.
When FAGE USA began operations two years ago, its packaging capabilities included the Oystar Gasti 82P aseptic filling machine, for 5.3-oz split cups and 6- and 7-oz round cups, and the Gasti 43P, for larger, 17.6- and 35.3-oz tubs. In June 2008, the company added a third machine—the Hamba FL 8/8 CA, from Oystar Hamba—to keep up with growing demand for the yogurt.
Of the three machines, McConaghy notes that “the Hamba is faster, it is mechanically easier to maintain, and its design is arguably the most elegant.” He adds that in selecting the machine, FAGE USA was looking for speed, reliability, and availability.
“The machine requires almost no annual maintenance because of the design. It’s a servo motor-driven design,” he says, “which means that it’s not designed mechanically to be interlocked from the beginning of the machine to the end. If you have a problem with the machine, you can isolate it and quickly fix it without having to disrupt the other mechanical portions of the machine.”
Like the Gasti machines, the Hamba is an aseptic filler, designed so that filling and sealing take place in a totally enclosed, hygienic environment with sterilized packaging materials. Says McConaghy, “The aseptic feature of the machine is really conducive to sustaining the quality of our yogurt.”
Machine masters eight cups at a time
Filling operations on the Hamba take place at a rapid 544-cup/min speed—nearly twice the pace of the 280-cup/min 82P machine. On the day of Packaging World’s visit to the plant, FAGE USA was running a split-cup package on the line, filling a 5.3-oz size of FAGE Total Classic Yogurt with Honey (see related video at packworld.com/video-29529).
The packaging process begins when one of the three Hamba operators on the line manually loads the machine with stacks of preprinted PP cups in rows of eight. Each stack then releases one cup into a slotted conveyor below, forming a row of eight cups that are then conveyed into the cup decontamination station of the machine. There, the cups are dosed with a mixture of hot, sterile air and hydrogen peroxide, after which they are dried at a temperature of 400°C.
The row of cups leaving the cup decontamination station is then conveyed underneath the machine’s filling nozzles; 16 cups are filled in one cycle. The yogurt reaches the nozzles after being pumped from a storage tank upstream, through a feed line and into a filling hopper. At this stage, the yogurt is still warm from processing and is dispensed into the cups at a temperature of approximately 100ºF. For fruit and honey varieties, flavorings are pumped in a similar manner into a separate hopper and are filled into the double-compartment cup first, before the yogurt is added.
As McConaghy explains, the Hamba machine is run by a local PLC from Allen-Bradley that communicates with the process PLC to regulate “product collection, cup dispensing, yogurt flow—the whole operation of the machine.”
After filling, round cups of plain yogurt advance to a station where a piece of parchment paper is dispensed on top of the yogurt to absorb excess whey from the product after settling. When split cups are being run on the line, this station is inactive.
At the next station, an aluminum lid is placed on top of each cup and is sealed to the rim of the cup using a heated sealing element. Leak detection follows, during which another heating element heats the air beneath the lid in the yogurt. As the air heats up, it expands, deflecting the lid. Those cups that do not deflect at a certain minimum distance are considered “untight.” After detection, the cups are conveyed to the next station where those packages without leaks are ink-jet-printed with the expiration date, the machine-designated letter, and the production time by a Videojet Excel 2000 dual-head ink-jet printer that traverses across two rows of eight cups at a time. Faulty cups do not get a lot code.
Following printing, cups in batches of 48 are lifted by a robotic gripper arm and placed into four awaiting corrugated trays (12 cups/tray), which are then conveyed out of the machine. The Hamba receives the erected and glued trays from a conveyor that leads to an adjoining room that houses the end-of-line equipment. The tray erector is a Tecma Pack machine, model FM 3000 B, equipped with a Nordson ProBlue 7 adhesive dispensing system. The tray erector, as well as other end-of-line machines, were integrated by Aries Packaging.
Product quality enhanced by packaging
FAGE Total yogurt is produced by a proprietary process that results in a thick texture and a creamy taste. The brand is sold in 0%-, 2%-, and 10%-cream versions in sizes from 5.3-oz cups to 35.3-oz tubs. The 5.3-oz size is offered in five flavors—honey, peach, strawberry, cherry, and blueberry—in a unique, two-compartment cup that keeps a serving of plain yogurt separate from the flavorings.
An import from Greece, the “split cup,” as it’s called by FAGE USA, “allows the consumer to bend over the side cup [of flavorings] and pour them directly onto the yogurt or eat the flavorings with the yogurt in the desired amount, rather than having them premixed,” explains McConaghy.
Both split cups and round cups are made from polypropylene and are supplied by Berry Plastics and Polytainers, respectively.
When FAGE USA began operations two years ago, its packaging capabilities included the Oystar Gasti 82P aseptic filling machine, for 5.3-oz split cups and 6- and 7-oz round cups, and the Gasti 43P, for larger, 17.6- and 35.3-oz tubs. In June 2008, the company added a third machine—the Hamba FL 8/8 CA, from Oystar Hamba—to keep up with growing demand for the yogurt.
Of the three machines, McConaghy notes that “the Hamba is faster, it is mechanically easier to maintain, and its design is arguably the most elegant.” He adds that in selecting the machine, FAGE USA was looking for speed, reliability, and availability.
“The machine requires almost no annual maintenance because of the design. It’s a servo motor-driven design,” he says, “which means that it’s not designed mechanically to be interlocked from the beginning of the machine to the end. If you have a problem with the machine, you can isolate it and quickly fix it without having to disrupt the other mechanical portions of the machine.”
Like the Gasti machines, the Hamba is an aseptic filler, designed so that filling and sealing take place in a totally enclosed, hygienic environment with sterilized packaging materials. Says McConaghy, “The aseptic feature of the machine is really conducive to sustaining the quality of our yogurt.”
Machine masters eight cups at a time
Filling operations on the Hamba take place at a rapid 544-cup/min speed—nearly twice the pace of the 280-cup/min 82P machine. On the day of Packaging World’s visit to the plant, FAGE USA was running a split-cup package on the line, filling a 5.3-oz size of FAGE Total Classic Yogurt with Honey (see related video at packworld.com/video-29529).
The packaging process begins when one of the three Hamba operators on the line manually loads the machine with stacks of preprinted PP cups in rows of eight. Each stack then releases one cup into a slotted conveyor below, forming a row of eight cups that are then conveyed into the cup decontamination station of the machine. There, the cups are dosed with a mixture of hot, sterile air and hydrogen peroxide, after which they are dried at a temperature of 400°C.
The row of cups leaving the cup decontamination station is then conveyed underneath the machine’s filling nozzles; 16 cups are filled in one cycle. The yogurt reaches the nozzles after being pumped from a storage tank upstream, through a feed line and into a filling hopper. At this stage, the yogurt is still warm from processing and is dispensed into the cups at a temperature of approximately 100ºF. For fruit and honey varieties, flavorings are pumped in a similar manner into a separate hopper and are filled into the double-compartment cup first, before the yogurt is added.
As McConaghy explains, the Hamba machine is run by a local PLC from Allen-Bradley that communicates with the process PLC to regulate “product collection, cup dispensing, yogurt flow—the whole operation of the machine.”
After filling, round cups of plain yogurt advance to a station where a piece of parchment paper is dispensed on top of the yogurt to absorb excess whey from the product after settling. When split cups are being run on the line, this station is inactive.
At the next station, an aluminum lid is placed on top of each cup and is sealed to the rim of the cup using a heated sealing element. Leak detection follows, during which another heating element heats the air beneath the lid in the yogurt. As the air heats up, it expands, deflecting the lid. Those cups that do not deflect at a certain minimum distance are considered “untight.” After detection, the cups are conveyed to the next station where those packages without leaks are ink-jet-printed with the expiration date, the machine-designated letter, and the production time by a Videojet Excel 2000 dual-head ink-jet printer that traverses across two rows of eight cups at a time. Faulty cups do not get a lot code.
Following printing, cups in batches of 48 are lifted by a robotic gripper arm and placed into four awaiting corrugated trays (12 cups/tray), which are then conveyed out of the machine. The Hamba receives the erected and glued trays from a conveyor that leads to an adjoining room that houses the end-of-line equipment. The tray erector is a Tecma Pack machine, model FM 3000 B, equipped with a Nordson ProBlue 7 adhesive dispensing system. The tray erector, as well as other end-of-line machines, were integrated by Aries Packaging.
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