MBP have recently introduced a version new multi-head weigher, dedicated to the fresh-cut salad and produce industry: the Series C2 14-Head weigher, has been further perfected.

1. The use of a new rigidized stainless steel, with a surface pattern and coating specifically designed to reduce friction and thereby increase product flow in the buckets and chutes.
2. New pre-dosing buckets with higher sides are able to accommodate all types of salad leaves even large ones.
3. New more powerful vibrating bases significantly increase maximum oscillation of the channels.
4. New rotating central cone controlled by brushless motor.

DMA Version

‪‪The new 14C2 the fresh-cut salad and vegetable industry is also available in the exclusive DMA version featuring 5-8 litre buckets in direct alignment.This configuration allows weigher production to be doubled by feeding Twin vertical packaging machines or 2 trays simultaneously, which then go on to flowpack packaging or a tray sealer.

The exclusive DMA system is designed so that the memory bucket is positioned in direct alignment with the weighing bucket. This avoids the product having to be deviated out of alignment and enables buckets with double opening flaps to be used.‬ ‪For example: with lettuce weighing 250-500 g., 60+60 weighings a minute can be discharged giving a total of 120 weighings a min.

The new 14C2 weigher for fresh-cut salad and produce can be washed down with water jets. The buckets and chutes can easily be removed and dismantled. Weighing precision is guaranteed by the exclusive MBP software that takes advantage of the calculating capacity of the dual-core processorfeatured on the master control industrial PC.

The new commercial branch, PFM China is now operational in Shanghai. It will be supplying the Chinese market with all sales and technical services for the PFM Group’s complete handling, weighing and packaging systems, all completely made in Italy and manufactured to the extremely high quality and technological standards for which the PFM brand has become renowned throughout the world.

“The opening of the Chinese branch” explains Mr Paolo Fioravanti, Managing Director of the Group, “is an important landmark, which fits in perfectly with the growth strategies that have marked the last 10 years of PFM’s history and have seen a series of acquisitions and new branches being opened in Italy and around the world. PFM China was set up to consolidate our presence in markets in the China and Asia-Pacific region, where companies in the PFM Group have already been working for decades. By being physically closer to the customers in these areas we shall be able to provide solutions that are increasingly tailored to suit their specific requirements in record time.”

PFM China is located at: 58, Changliu Rd, Zendai Cube Building, Room 303B, Shanghai 200135, P.R.China

PFM have developed a high-speed resealable cheese slice packaging line for a Japanese company in a joint venture with an international brand leader in the food industry.
Customer requirement: to wrap cheese slices at high speed in continuous production with flexible format changeovers.

Product: cheese slices.
Formats: piles of 8, 10, 12, 15, and 20 slices.
Packs: flowrap die-cut resealable packs with an adhesive label.
Production speed: up to 150 packs a minute for the 8/10 slice formats.

The technological challenge: cheese slices are an extremely delicate and fragile product that must be treated with the utmost care throughout the entire processing, conveying and packaging process. PFM have succeeded in combining this requirement with high-speed packaging and completely hermetic seals. Moreover, every part of the line is sanitisable.

The PFM Group are now making their entry into the pouch sector with the new D-Series. This range of Horizontal Form Fill and Seal Machines produces the highly successful Stand-Up Pouches, which are becoming extremely popular in a large number of different food, non-food and beverage industries.

Innovation and diversification are the precepts that have inspired the PFM Group’s strategies over the last few years and the D-Series was developed precisely with these in mind: a machine unparalleled on the market in terms of features and performance, the fruit of three years’ design, planning and testing by companies in the PFM Group.

The PFM D-Series Full Servo produces a vast range of stand-up pouches with relative accessories for powder, granular, dense and liquid products; the D-Series’ applied technology has enabled it to successfully overcome the most common problems encountered in producing pouches and is aimed at narrowing the gap between the machine and operators deriving from its complex use.

Format Changeover: one of the procedures at the heart of the packaging process has been rendered extremely simple and fast for any operator.

Simple: all the machine’s functions and parameters are extremely easy to program, even by unskilled operators.

Accessible: the Full Side Access construction concept enables all the parts of the machine to easily be reached for sanitisation and maintenance operations.

“With the D-Series,” Andrea Fioravanti, Research and Development Director, has announced, “PFM have speeded up innovation by allocating over 3% of their turnover to research and development. The PFM D-Series is a range of extremely innovative machines that demonstrates PFM’s experience in using state-of-the-art mechatronic technologies for processing flexible film. The D-Series opens up new horizons in the pouch sector by offering the opportunity to modify times, sealing pressure and cutting pitch from the recipe; it comes complete with self-diagnostic alarm systems and offers easy maintenance and sanitization, high performance and easy format changeover. The PFM D-Series brings total innovation to the industry: it facilitates operators in every sense thereby allowing higher production rates to be achieved through its excellent overall performance and extremely short format changeover times”.

2012 is expected to be another year of growth for the companies in the PFM Group. According to the final balance statement figures, there has been an increase of 10% over the 2011 sales volume, bringing the Group’s consolidated turnover up to 77 million Euros. The increases refer to the positive trend in sales of packaging machines and systems of the 11 companies making up the industrial Group: PFM Packaging Machinery SPA, BG PACK SPA, MBP Srl, SPS Italiana Pack Systems SPA, PF Meccanica and all the foreign subsidiaries (PFM UK, DE, Russia, Spain, North America and California).

Paolo Fioravanti, Managing Director of the Group comments on the figures:

“We are all pleased with the excellent results achieved by the Group, which are well above the turnover and profitability objectives we set at the end of 2011. The growing demand for complete, customised systems has led to plenty of orders on the order book. This confirms that the industrial choices and sales strategies we have implemented over the last few years have been effective.
The Group’s sights however remain strongly focussed on technological innovation: during 2013 we will be launching a series of state-of-the-art technical solutions developed by our on-going Research & Development activities, which the companies in the Group have committed to invest over 3% of total turnover in, which reconfirms our position as one of the undisputed leaders in the flexible packaging industry.”

PFM has developed a high-speed stock cube (Bouillon Cube) packaging line for a multinational company that owns many of the food industry’s most popular brands. The first line installed was so successful that the customer decided within a few months to purchase another two lines.

The stock cube market is extremely dynamic and fast growing, particularly in emerging countries.

Stock cubes are extremely difficult products to package using flow pack technology. Being particularly fragile, crumbly, oily and slippery, they also require a working environment that can be thoroughly sanitised.

Customer required: to produce pre-cut strips containing 5 individual packs of product at high speed.

Solution: PFM packaging line produces 700 aesthetically perfect packages a minute, which in turn increases the shelf life of the product.
These pre-cut strips are ideal for displaying in retail environments.
The advantages achieved over the competition are considerable in terms of productivity, reducing wrapping material costs, preserving product freshness and increased product shelf life.

PFM and MBP have developed a complete packaging and weighing line for grated cheese, which achieves the highest levels of speed and precision brilliantly overcoming the technical issues arising from the processing of this particular product.

Technical challenges: grated cheese falling along the chutes tends to stretch out into a line that is difficult to manage. Moreover, the product leaves a layer of fatty deposits on the weigher’s vibrating channels, chutes and buckets that affects the ability of the product to flow during production. If a single-discharge weigher and rephaser bucket are employed, production speed is restricted by the time required for the product to settle and be discharged from the rephaser bucket to the VFFS machine.

PFM solution: the line produces packages (formats: 50g up to 1000g.) of finely grated cheese in modified atmosphere environments at high speeds with flexible format changeovers, reaching production rate of 100 pckgs/min for 100g format.

We are pleased to inform you that PFM GROUP is attending next edition of EMBALLAGE which will take place in Pris Nord, Villpinte, from the 19th to the 22nd of November 2012.

Join us at our stand C 030 in hall 5A where we will exhibit:

1. an horizontal pillow-pack wrapper model PEARL for bread rolls
2. an horizontal pillow-pack wrapper model SCIROCCO with film preparation unit for cheese blocks in reclosable packs
3. a vertical form fill and seal wrapper model SOLARIS completed with an MBP multi-head weigher mod. 16C1 DMA.
4. SPS sandwiching machine mod. B 1600

PFM has developed a complete line for handling and packaging a stacked product that is extremely difficult to handle: cookies. These extremely fragile biscuits containing chocolate are irregular in shape and size.

The PFM line collects the cookies from the processing line, lines them up and forms stacks of 2 or 3 biscuits and then packages them at speeds of up to 300 products a minute.

1. Dimension checking station.
2. Belt phasing system
3. Stacking system that produces stacks of two or three products. Uses a three-level biscuit stacking device.
4. The Zephyr model flowpack wrapper features a programmed crimper cutting system. The result is a package containing two stacks of product sealed in the middle.

On request from a well-known Italian food processing company, MBP have designed and supplied a complete feed, weighing and portioning line on a thermoforming machine for mini frankfurters. 240 weighings a minute and 18-tray multiple rephaser bucket are some distinguishing figures of the MBP line.

The line comprises of a product elevator, a 24C2 multihead weigher DMA version, 18-trays multiple rephaser bucket, it is full servo and controlled by step motors, quick and easy to clean and sanitize.