FOOD & BEVERAGE INDUSTRY FOCUS Pudding PET pot first
Following the purchase of a fully-electric IntElect 160 Smart machine from Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, injection moulding specialist Patterson & Rothwell has become the first company to produce recyclable thin wall PET premium dessert pots for the food industry
or many years, pots for desserts, such as yoghurts and mousses, have been injection moulded from general purpose polystyrene (GPPS). The downside to them is that they crack easily and cannot be recycled. Patterson & Rothwell knew that if it could develop a pot made from more hard-wearing and eco-friendly PET, it would be offering something unique in the marketplace that would ignite the interest of the major retailers. After two years of focused R&D,
F
the company has accomplished its goal - stable production of recyclable PET pots that are 0.4mm thinner than GPPS dessert pots. However, the odds were stacked against a successful outcome. “Everyone doing PET was telling us this couldn’t be done,” recalls Dave Bowden, sales and marketing manager at the Oldham-based injection moulding firm. The reason for this pessimism was that producing a commercially viable PET container was a challenge from both a technical and a cost perspective. “Because the cost of the wall section would make the PET pot prohibitively expensive, we knew we had to produce a thin wall pot in order to maintain the same price point as a GPPS pot,” comments Bowden. The pots also needed to be produced at a constant rate and utilise the multi-cavity process of at least eight impressions per cycle, to make them cost effective. Being a new prototype project with an uncertain commercial
viability, Patterson & Rothwell was initially reluctant to invest in a bespoke machine. Instead, they ran test runs using their existing hydraulic machine, equipped with twin accumulators to increase cycle time. The hydraulic machine, however, could only manage to fill four out of eight cavities, as it simply didn’t have the pressure capabilities necessary for producing thin wall PET.
“The product was sticking to the
side of the tool because there wasn’t enough pressure to eject it from the mould,” Bowden explains. Not to be defeated, Patterson &
Rothwell’s next tack was to try an all-electric machine from injection moulding equipment specialist Sumitomo (SHI) Demag to see how it fared. The results achieved with the IntElect Smart 160 tonne machine were a pleasant surprise. The same tool that had achieved four impressions in 25 seconds on a hydraulic machine managed eight impressions in 17 seconds on the electric machine. In March this year, after two years of testing and R&D, Patterson & Rothwell purchased the IntElect 160 Smart, giving it the capabilities to produce recyclable PET pots in a variety of shapes and sizes with walls as thin as 0.8mm - that is 0.4mm thinner than the walls of the GPPS pots that are commonplace in the food industry.
Sumitomo (SHI) Demag T: 01296 739500
uk.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu/
/AUTOMATION
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72