Ilapak has developed a “unique” flowwrapper for UK tortilla producer Sonora Foods which, for the first time, enables the company to produce flow-wrapped packs with the six-month shelf-life more usual from thermoformed containers.
Using Ilapak's VacMap flowwrapper Sonora can now produce the “VacMap” long-life packs at high speed at “a significantly lower cost” than using a thermoformer.
Rising sales of Sonora's Discovery tortillas have driven a £7m investment at the company's Daventry factory, (where Ilapak's Delta MAP packaging machines have been used for several years) and the building of a second in Milton Keynes. The company produces six million a week at the sites and the VacMap's “three-in-one” packaging capability enables it to manufacture conventional flow-wrapped packs, MAP packs and VacMap packs on the same system, with fast changeover. The line is currently running at 48 packs/min, and labour costs have been reduced thanks to its fully automated feeding system; previously tortillas had to be fed into the thermoformer manually.
