Marden Edwards Journal

In the search for market differentiation in the tobacco, cosmetic and food industries more and more brand owners are turning to non rectangular cartons for their products. These trapezoidal, ballotin or bevel edge packs have been considered difficult to overwrap.

Marden Edwards, by virtue of the design of its wrapping processes and many years experience of non rectangular product overwrapping, have developed many techniques to provide a high quality, overwrapped product.

In the confectionery industry, especially in Belgium, trapezoidal “ballotin” boxes have for many years been considered as the ideal gift box for the high quality chocolates contained within. Whether the ballotin is to be wrapped with heat sealable polypropylene film, cellophane film or heat sealable paper, Marden Edwards machines accurately handle such packs to ensure that although the top of the box is wider than the bottom of the box, high quality end seals are maintained.

A development of the ballotin box is the “gold block” of chocolate. This format was recently wrapped on a Marden Edwards machine for National Chocolates in Columbia. Even though the box has an extended lip, the resulting overwrap was of a high quality and provided the product with the protection that it needed.

An even more extreme development of the ballotin box is the hexagonal box. This pack has the end folds placed along the bevelled sides of the box. A clever tucking mechanism and an extra side sealer heater pad ensure that this pack is wrapped on a standard machine. To return to a purely rectangular carton was purely a matter of following the standard, rapid, changeover procedure.

In the tobacco industry the bevel edged 10s or 20s pack has become something of a standard for some brands. The outer carton which contains 10 packs of 20s has had to follow suit to provide a facsimile of the individual pack. The video shows a bevel edged pack running through a Marden Edwards S4B100FF machine which has only had new pack support fingers to enable this pack to be wrapped.

Marden Edwards has also had success wrapping trapezoidal perfume and fragrance boxes. For the perfume industry, quality of wrap and position of trailing edge seal is paramount. At a recent installation of its TM100 overwrapper in a French company, Marden Edwards wrapped a full trapezoidal pack with the lateral seal placed on the angled trailing edge. The adaptations necessary have become part of the regular size changeover procedure.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Industry applications, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.