Print Registered Shrink Film Multipacks
Objective
To address the increasing market pressure to deliver greater flexibility for multipack offerings demanded by the take-home beer market whilst at the same time achieving this without the historically experienced on-cost associated with the traditional card based formats used by the company and the UK brewing industry generally.
Card multipacks had been used successfully for multipacks of cans with contents below that of the typical 24-can case and benefited from their being robust, readily acceptable to the consumer and able to be printed with high quality graphics and finishes. The disadvantages from our perspective being principally limitations in line flexibility (12-pack being the basic format) and the cost penalty from the material reducing the competitiveness of the finished offering.
The challenge was therefore to develop a solution which maintained the existing benefits of pack integrity and consumer acceptance while delivering a range of pack size options, incorporating high quality print with an overall premium appearance and minimising additional costs through both material and impact on output efficiency.
Project Details
Using in-house expertise we evaluated a number of options for collating sale units of four, six, eight and twelve cans. For some time we had been observing the development of film based packs within the soft drinks, food and pet care sectors resulting in our decision that this was the way to proceed. The pack style had been in the market for some time and sales readily suggested a track record of consumer acceptance hence risk was perceived as low. Developments in printing onto flexible substrates provided the ability to create high quality photo images and graphics giving the premium appearance desired and application technology was determined to be able to form packs of the robust nature needed to contain cans in the formats desired through the supply chain to the consumer. Evaluation of costs showed significant advantages over card based options and on-cost found to be marginal when compared to a simple rim applied hi-cone pack.
Being a conservative organisation, a market test was carried out in the Autumn of 2003 using standard can stock repacked into six-pack film units by a contract packing partner. Any initial concerns were quickly dispelled as the test was a great success.
Plant selection rapidly focused us towards KHS Kisters as a machine supplier as they were able to demonstrate a proven track record in the sales sectors referred previously and had experience of the type of equipment necessary to run at the speeds needed to maintain overall plant efficiency. Hence we ordered a Kisters SP100V film packer to produce can sizes of 330ml, 440ml and 500ml into multipack units of four, six, eight and twelve cans. Conveyor solutions were obtained from SFT to transport the packs without deformation or damage into an existing tray loader/shrink wrapper. A conscious decision to retain a cardboard tray was made to avoid damage to the multipacks during in-store merchandising where sharp implements may be used to remove the outer low fusion collation film.
Project Outcome
The installation of this, the first such plant in the UK brewing industry, was completed and commissioned at the beginning of June 2004 running six-pack Red Stripe lager and has subsequently produced other large campaigns of four-pack, six-pack and eight-pack across a range of products. Each of these have been judged successful and the work load for this plant continues to grow. The project was conceived, designed, delivered and installed within all constraints and the packs produced have been extremely well received in all of the markets in which placed.