From:Packagingdigest
With both horizontal and vertical f/f/s systems, RP’s Pasta proves that you don’t have to be a major company to automate and manufacture innovatively packaged products.

Peter Robertson is a kind of Renaissance man, having worked as a stage carpenter for dance companies like Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, as a chef in New York City and in engineering at Hershey. In a career path with more twists than fusilli pasta, Robertson has found his calling as CEO of RP’s Pasta Co., Madison, WI.

Don’t let his title fool you: It was apparent during my mid-summer visit that Robertson, who is more at home in the plant than in the office, remains a hands-on manager overseeing the company’s three packaging lines.

Two of those lines are located in a newer, isolated part of the building dedicated to making and packaging gluten-free pasta. It’s a market on a fast-growth curve: In a report published July 2014, MarketsandMarkets forecasts gluten-free products to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.2% 2014 to 2019, with North America the largest and fastest-growing market.

It’s also a rising tide that’s lifting RP’s sales and raising its production capability. Here, in a facility in a neighborhood within site of the state’s capital building, Robertson has packed a generous amount of machinery into a tight space, doing so in two dimensions in the form of vertical and horizontal form/fill/seal systems that are about a restaurant table’s distance apart. The vertical f/f/s bagger, which employs modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), is the newer of the two systems.  It is part of a new integrated processing and packaging line. The line’s concept originated with a unique, branded product in an operator-friendly, retail-ready package—despite the fact that Robertson’s initial market focus is on foodservice.

Like many breakthrough ideas, it started with a problem.

“Trying to find space in the frozen retail section is a challenge,” Robertson explains. “Where you don’t have a challenge is going into a restaurant and giving them the answer to their problems.”

His solution: A single-serve 8-oz pouch that is as attractive as any branded and bagged retail product.

“Universities, restaurants and healthcare facilities are essentially mandated now to have gluten-free offerings in order not to say ‘no’ to 10% of their customers who want gluten-free products,” he says. “What operators want is a precooked product, so we offer them a fully cooked, individually quick-frozen, top-of-the-line pasta product that they just finish in a sauté bin. We cut out their labor and eliminated their potential for cross-contamination [of gluten].

“I wanted it to look professional and with all the information that restaurants need and I wanted the restaurants to know my brand. We have the Nutrition Facts and ingredient listings for each portion because that’s where restaurants are heading as they are required to have nutritional analysis on their dishes. This way we’re more than up-to-date, we’re ahead of them. This packaged product is fantastic and provides operators with labor savings, portion control and zero product waste. At the National Restaurant Association show [in May 2014] the reaction from those operators to our products was ‘this is a no-brainer, we have to have it.’”

Not only is RP’s positioned ahead of the foodservice curve, it’s prepared for retail around the bend: He expects that the products will gain brand recognition with restaurants and from there eventually get traction at retail.

Vertical growth

Robertson’s vision for product and package was realized in 2014 with the investment in the processing and packaging line. Processing starts with an automated extruder that deposits the pasta onto a conveyor where it is transported into a continuous rotary blancher/cooker. From there, the pasta goes through a chilled water tumbler and into a cryogenic liquid nitrogen freezer that freezes the product solid within 30 seconds “so that it maintains all of its fresh-cooked integrity for, during and after packaging,” adds Robertson.

A Telesonic Packaging Corp. Model VQF-430 vertical f/f/s system was installed in parallel with the freezer. It’s a literal 90-degree change in orientation from the horizontal f/f/s systems Robertson has used for years including an older, workhorse Multivac system in the original area of the plant that he bought used and has had rebuilt twice. He likes the fact that the vertical volume output is higher than his horizontal systems. The flexpacks also represent a major change from printed labels applied to trays to using preprinted bag film.

The bag is made of a 2.5-mil three-layer polypropylene/polyethylene/PP film, flexo-printed in six colors by Managed Packaging. The structure permits sealing of inside and outside layers and allows enough rigidity to yield a firm gusset and squared-up, stand-up bag, according to Robertson.

The bagger is the packaging centerpiece at the end a new, highly-automated production setup customized for the restaurant portion of the foodservice market. Product conveys from the freezer on the processing line to a bucket elevator that lifts the IQF pasta to a 14-head Telesonic computerized netweigher.

Capable of speeds up to 80 bags per minute, the machine can produce 8-oz bags at a rate of 40 per minute, though typically it is run at around 24 per minute. The bags are discharged onto an angled takeaway conveyor that carries them through a stainless-steel metal detector, also from Telesonic.

A contract packager Robertson had contacted that used vertical f/f/s packaging suggested he consider Telesonic machinery.

“I looked at Telesonic machinery and what it was able to offer for the cost and, hands down, this was the best way to gain entry into this market,” says Robertson. “While its capabilities are extremely good, what I like best is the machine’s simplicity that also relates to accessibility and serviceability. Changeovers are done quickly and a change of film is very simple. And, for the most part, it uses off-the-shelf parts.”

Telesonic options that RP’s selected included gas flush (not used for the IQF products), a gusset-making device and quick-change parts.

“With this upgrade and with this packaging, we went from a mom-and-pop shop to a real manufacturer with a product that that you would see in a grocery store,” Robertson says. “It’s very professional looking and just beautiful—and the whole operation runs beautifully, too.”

He also points out that his quad-seal bags “with four really nice panels” are easily packed 12 manually into a box to produce a nice, uniform case.

RP’s Pasta is manufacturing the products on-demand for orders and expects to be running three to five days a week soon.  Products include gluten-free IQF macaroni, fusilli, shells, penne and ziti.

Robertson discloses that they have interest from retailers and foodservice operators such as Delaware North, The Kennedy Space Center, Shenandoah National Park and Hilton Worldwide.

Horizontal orientation

The other of the two newer systems is a Model RS320 horizontal tray thermoformer from VC999 Packaging Systems Inc. installed about three years ago. During our visit, RP’s manufactured and packaged fusilli pasta. The thermoformer is capable of 24 packages per minute, though RP’s operates it at around 15 per minute.

Near the infeed portion of the 5,260mm/17.25 ft-long thermoformer, dough is made using a two-stage extruder wherein one hopper mixes the dough and the second extrudes it through brass dies and into a tub. The operator, who also runs the packaging machine, manually weighs and then loads the pasta in 9-oz portions into trays on the two-up machine. Robertson is looking to automate that part of the operation, starting with a preweigh system.

The semi-rigid trays are thermoformed using black-pigmented rollstock from PurePlast. The forming material comprises 12-mil polyvinyl chloride laminated with a 2-mil ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) oxygen barrier film that maintains the modified-atmosphere packaging for extended shelf life, Robertson points out.

The trays index through the machine from the infeed section into a modified atmosphere chamber where they are gas-flushed 2x2 at a time using a nitrogen and carbon dioxide gas blend and heat sealed with a clear EVOH-barrier film. RP’s codes the products for a 10 to 12 week refrigerated shelf life.

Trays continue beneath the cutting assembly, which cross-cuts and makes machine-direction cuts to separate the trays. Trays are released to a short conveyor that carries them through a Loma Systems metal detector and onto a pack-off table from where they are manually transferred to the labeling system that forms the cross-bar of the T-shaped layout.

“This will get automated at some point, but one step at a time,” observes Robertson of the transfer to the pack-off table. You can expect that with the growing demand that RP’s is experiencing, those steps will come sooner rather than later.

Additional suppliers:

Managed Packaging, 262-367-6600262-367-6600

managedpackaging.com

MarketsandMarkets, 888-600-6441

marketsandmarkets.com

PurePlast Inc., 800-410-1025

pureplast.com

pureplast.com