Food Packaging Machines & Automation

Some buyers need one packaging machine for a product that already arrives prepared: a vertical bagger under an existing weigher, a tray sealer for a ready-meal kitchen, a vacuum machine for a cheese room. DOKTEK FoodTech supplies these as configured standalone machines.

Others need the whole end of a processing line. DOKTEK already engineers cutting, trimming, vision inspection and robotic handling for irregular food products, so it can take a product from the cutting station through inspection and weighing into a bag, a pouch or a tray, and on to the case and the pallet — with one team responsible for how the stages hand product to each other.

The pack format is a commercial decision before it is a machine decision: what the retailer shelves, what the product needs to survive and how the consumer opens it. The machine follows from it.

Most packaging problems start at the doser, not at the sealer. A multihead weigher handles irregular pieces such as frozen vegetables, nuts, dried fruit and snacks. A linear weigher suits uniform, free-flowing granules. Volumetric cup fillers dose products with a stable bulk density such as rice or pulses; auger fillers dose powders such as flour and spices; pump or piston fillers dose liquids and sauces.

The choice depends on how the product flows, how fragile it is, whether it sticks, and how much give-away the pack weight can tolerate. DOKTEK selects the dosing equipment with the packer, not after it.

The same machine types appear in very different lines. Typical DOKTEK FoodTech chains, each configured to the product:

A sealed pack still has to be checked. Lines can include a checkweigher for pack weight, a metal detector or X-ray system for foreign bodies, print and label verification, and seal inspection. DOKTEK's machine-vision engineering applies here as much as it does upstream: a camera can verify a date code, a label or the position of product in a tray before the pack leaves the line.

DOKTEK reviews the product, the target pack and the required output, then proposes the machine configuration and the line layout. Where the product or the packaging material is new, a test with the customer's own product and film is agreed before the configuration is fixed.

The quotation states the configuration, the scope of supply, the electrical and compressed-air requirements, the documentation and the delivery conditions. CE documentation can be prepared according to the machine scope and the destination market.