PACKAGING

Finally, the snack is conveyed to the packaging system, where it is packed with the bag size designed according to market demand.

Packaging process is split into two phases:

• WEIGHING of the pellet
• FORMING AND FILLING OF THE BAG by means of a BAG-MAKER

WEIGHING of the pellet
A good weighing system should grant:

• a high speed weighing, in terms of number of bags weighed/minute;
• high precision, even with small bag sizes;
• reliability;
• gentle handling of snack.

Normally, the best performances are reached with multi-head weighing machines, which grant high precision with different bag sizes, and an error margin of about zero. It is important to minimise the error margin, as flavoured snack has the major incidence on the cost of the bag and wastes can increase direct variable manufacturing costs.

FORMING AND FILLING OF THE BAG by means of a BAG-MAKER
A good bag-maker should grant:

• speed according to weighing process, in terms of number of bags per minute;
• gentle handling of snacks and film;
• reliability.

Generally speaking, bag-maker speed is measured in number of beats per minute, so that its production capacity depends on the weight of the bag. The bags being equal, production capacity of a bag-maker depends on the flowing speed of snacks.

It is commonly suggested that bag-maker production capacity is a little bit higher than the fryer capacity.