Pearl Technologies, a leader in offering the right technology and machinery to answer growing customer demand.
There’s been few packaging innovations that have taken the world by storm like pouches have.
Go to any zoo or park, and you’ll see plenty of children enjoying their pouch snack. And it’s not just food—the beverage industry has especially embraced pouches. For instance, the wine industry, which is historically extremely picky about its packaging, is launching high-quality wine in pouches. There’s also plenty of pouch uses in medical products, automotive oils and more. Pouch packaging offers a diverse range of styles—both practical and artistic—for various applications and industries. And Pearl Technologies has them all covered.
As a leading supplier of converting solutions for the flexible packaging industry, we focus on providing customers with top-of-the-line products to increase productivity, lower costs, and improve quality. We design and build standard and custom high-speed machine attachments for punching holes, perforating and slitting for the converting industry.
Sustainable and Flexible Packaging
The pouches market is expected to grow by $12.92 billion between 2021 and 2026. The rising popularity of pouches and why many manufacturers opt to offer them can be attributed to the desire for more efficient transport. Think about it, would you rather carry a glass bottle everywhere or a lightweight pouch? Pouches typically weigh approximately 80% less than other packaging options. This characteristic not only contributes to reduced transportation costs when it comes to shipping, but aligns with cost-effectiveness, due to the utilization of fewer materials.
Furthermore, pouches not only use a reduced amount of material for production but excel at optimizing space utilization. This is evident in stand-up pouches, where the actual contents make up nearly 90% of the total product volume. And because pouches allow for more product to be transported in one load, there’s a significant, positive impact on CO2 emissions. You’re getting more bang for your buck and you’re using a more sustainable, greener packaging material!
According to Technavio, the need to extend the shelf life of food items and lower their waste has resulted in the emergence of resealable flexible plastic packaging. The ability to re-seal or close something when it’s not quite depleted keeps pouches competitive against plastic bottles and jars. With a growing need to keep things fresh, it’s safe to say that pouches will continue to grow and adapt to our ever-changing needs and wants.
However, making the switch to pouches is not simply a drop-in solution. Due to evolving packaging designs and consumer demands for more sustainable solutions, challenges will arise, and manufacturers must adapt to the new market requirements. Pearl Technologies has done this by working with customers to design our new Slit/Cut Unit, which puts an easy dog-bone-style tear cut in pouches. And, in response to customer demand, we developed an economical Zero Clearance Unit that provides pouch manufacturers a lower-cost unit for smaller batch runs without sacrificing the quality and durability expected from Pearl!
Knowledge of Materials
Having been a reputable provider of converting and extruding solutions since 1985, we understand what materials make the most sense for an application. When it comes to pouches, it’s important to keep in mind the complexity of their structure, as most consist of multiple layers bonded together.
Typically, laminated pouches are made from plastic films like PE, which is the most common, as well as PET, PP, vinyl, paper, and/or metal foils. How do you pick a pouch material, you ask? It all depends on what’s going inside the pouch! While the majority of pouches are heat sealed, there are some that are also bonded with adhesives.
Sustainability goals are driving customers to consider mono-materials (often PE) or coated papers as well. Material companies also offer options that allow manufacturers to use recycled materials for pouches as well as work on the recyclability of pouches as whole. At Pearl, we work with our customers to ensure you’re getting the right unit for your line. We ask a series of questions to determine which punch profile and unit will work best with your requirements.
It’s important for pouch manufacturers to partner with converters that understand different materials require different types of tooth profiles to properly cut the film for features such as hanger holes, handle holes, tear notches, or gussets. Our goal is to make YOU successful by supplying you with the right unit the first time.
Partnering with Pearl ensures a deep understanding of diverse materials, facilitating precise pouch manufacturing through our expertise in designing and building high-speed machine attachments tailored for specific tooth profiles, guaranteeing optimal film cutting for your products.
Choosing the Right Technology
Pouches are a popular choice, but they are also quite challenging to make. Low-quality flexible packages are prone to leakage and spoilage and may be more susceptible to damage during transport. And we’ve all experienced the frustration when low-quality tear holes make it impossible to properly open a package.
And there are a variety of options when it comes to producing pouches. For instance, a stand-up pouch can include round corners, tear notch, hang hole, resealable zipper, window, bottom gusset and a custom label. As you can see, it’s quite complex!
Pouch lines frequently have an intermittent section, but some are continuous motion. Standard equipment produces 100-120 pouches per minute. Superior cutting technologies include toothed, die cut and pressure cut options, and it’s important to pick the right knife or punch. To properly convert your pouch. Again, that’s where the experts at Pearl Technologies can help.
The industry norm is a perfect “clean” cut, which means that holes are die cut. These zero-tolerance holes are ideal for medical and pharmaceutical manufactures, as well as any cosmetic or consumer good products that want to boast quality and novelty. Meanwhile, toothed punches are fantastic for handle holes or when hole-perfection isn’t required. Setup costs are less and usually there’s less maintenance involved too.
For decades, pouches have grown at two times the rate of bags, and this is expected to continue. Choosing the right technology and an experienced manufacturing partner allows packaging pouch makers to optimize cost and cut quality. Pearl Technologies is here to answer your questions and help with producing your pouches. To talk to one of our experts, connect with us here.