Run-safe processes for food packaging

Safe materials alone do not ensure food safety. Learn more about the importance of packaging operations for the safety of final food products. On the following pages, we present our in-house expertise and service offering, e.g. visiting your facilities to provide you with the best support to optimise your processes, as well as Henkel's high-grade equipment solutions.

After choosing a safe adhesive, food manufactures should consider and minimise further risks along the packaging line, including uncontrolled exposure of foodstuffs to dust, machine cleaners, spilled adhesive, but also a sub-optimal setup of the adhesive system such as incorrect adhesive application quantity, wrong adhesive temperature, or a sub-optimal adhesive placement on the package.

Choosing the right adhesives and coatings is also crucial for converters to produce food-safe laminates and to achieve the desired packaging performance, such as good filling resistance, retort, convenience, barrier properties, sealability or mechanical protection of foodstuffs. Converters should eliminate potential risks for food safety along the manufacturing process, including mixing ratios and continuous dosing of adhesive systems, measurement and testing of laminates as e.g. migration, incorrect adhesive application or solvent retention. Occupational safety, for example, safe handling of chemicals and wrong temperature settings is a closely related, important aspect.

These are just some of the many factors that may negatively influence the safety of the final food product. It is therefore essential to continuously address these factors and eliminate any potential risk.

Our Technical Customer Service experts guide our customers towards minimising food safety-related risks that may occur along the converting line, from application to process optimisation. Henkel strives to support where our customers benefit most — on-site at the converting line or in our pilot plant where new materials and adhesive systems can be tested on an industrial-scale lamination machine.

Their extensive experience in the food packaging industry, close exchange with OEMs, OMMs and industry associations, offers a single point of contact for theoretical and practical aspects of food safety.

We provide the packaging industry with a unique and comprehensive product and service expertise offering:

• Best practice guidance & troubleshooting at the machine
• Expert technical training
• Technical audits
• Guided trials with new substrates
• Individual customer training programmes
• Training on test methods, such as PAA migration measurements
• Converters' Academy
• In-house technical service centre for individual tests without interrupting the customer's production processes
• Interface to in-house analytics

Henkel offers equipment solutions that support keeping your food production environment contamination-free: closed melt-on-demand hot melt systems.

Your benefits:

• No adhesive spillage — the systems are completely closed, which significantly reduces the risk of spilled adhesive being placed back in the bag or in the tank
• Fewer clogged nozzles and damaged modules from char & contaminants in tank and open glue boxes — lowers the risk of contamination with adhesive
• Minimised tank and adhesive temperature variations — for improved bonding quality

Henkel also offers specific equipment solutions that improve the reliability and efficiency of your converting operations and contribute to food-safe packaging down the line: LIOSCAN and dosing units.

• LIOSCAN: The inline coating weight measurement system immediately indicates any deviation from the specified coating weight, thus minimising the risks of potential claims and reducing waste production
• Dosing units: Exact pumping of multi-component adhesive systems allows for compliance with specified mixing ratios and minimises risks such as delamination or poor optical appearance