Dennis Gunnell, President, Formost Fuji Corp.

PS: Are you seeing customers using form/fill/seal equipment for any new product areas?

DG: The packaging machine itself obviously has been around for a long time, but one new big area of use would be ground meat – trying to reduce packaging material and offer a more user-friendly package. We’re finding that, with ground meat, we can get rid of the tray. We can use a better material — and less material — so that’s exciting (see details below).

Also, an industry that has been pretty slow to change – and pretty slow to add packaging at all – is fresh produce. We have been creating solutions for companies to put packaging equipment on moving trailers so they can harvest it [the produce], wash it and package it right in the field. We have two customers that are already doing this and putting product on the shelf.

PS: What are some of the top features that food producers are looking for in new FFS equipment?

DG: Sustainability. Prior to COVID, the pendulum had swung way over toward sustainability, and it was a driving force. And then, of course, overnight, the pandemic greatly inhibited the option of more sustainable packaging. But it’s starting to become an issue again. More and more people are asking about it. Everybody’s got it on their mind, so that’s going to be a constant driver now.

I think the challenge with that is that they want a more sustainable system and a more sustainable package, but they also want to keep it at the price that they’re currently running it and at the speed that they’re currently running it, and that’s been a challenge for the film companies to develop something that will go at the higher speed and create the package with the look that they’re looking for.

There is a lot going on in development all the time. We’re being asked to test the films. We’ve got a pallet load of films showing up next week from a supplier involving six different options for a more sustainable film, and we’re trying to determine for a specific customer which one is the best solution that gives them the speed they want and the durability so that it can handle the supply chain.

There are so many aspects to it that the consumer really doesn’t think about. It’s got to be able to not just get from the point where the consumer buys it to wherever they’re going to consume it, but it’s got to get from the manufacturing floor, into a case, travel on a box to wherever it’s going, and keep its integrity. So there are a lot of factors that come into how successful the material will be. How does it do in the freezer if it’s a freezer product?

One thing we offer is free testing for our customers and potential customers to send us their product and the film that they’re looking at so that we can test it for them. They want to switch over to these better films, but if they buy a whole bunch of it and they just put it on the line and run it, it can have a whole set of different issues that they have to deal with.

We also work with the film companies themselves, so they’ll send over different types of films. We’re working with a couple companies right now to work through the difficulties and challenges with recyclability.

There is a lot of discussion around reducing gauge, reducing thickness, where they might be running a millimeter and a half film and the suppliers says, ‘Well, we want to try to run a millimeter and a quarter.’ They can send that to us. We do all the testing, and say, “Okay, to run this on your machine, here’s what you need. Here’s what you need to know. Your temperatures change. Your pressure changes. Your film tensions change. Here are those settings.” So when they try it on their machine, they know what they need to do before they’ve ever taken a minute of production time.

Formost Fuji Hygienic Ground Meat Flow Wrap System

The Formost Fuji hygienic ground meat flow wrap system is designed to package ground meat without the foam tray. The advantages to the producer are huge, but it doesn't stop there. Meat departments at local grocery stores will also see huge advantages to selling the new package while meeting the consumer's demand for more sustainable packaging.

Benefits include:

• Sustainability/reduced waste
• Shelf life. Same as a master pack, but able to reduce wasted product by not having to open three packs at a time in a master pack. Shelf life amounts to 20+ days on the shelf prior to freezing.
• Back-of-the-house space savings. Tray-less packaging allows for smaller cases and not having to worry so much about product going bad thanks to shelf life.

A video regarding Formost Fuji’s new ground meat package can be found here.