Henkel empowers Easytech’s move into pet food with PVC-free coatings and advanced sealants, ensuring reliable sealing, smooth production, and consistent high quality.
Easytech’s entry into pet food packaging was driven by a major customer, opening a new market with higher demands on sealing, safety, and process stability. To meet these challenges, the company upgraded its production with high-speed rotary liners and transitioned to PVC-free coatings.
This shift introduced technical hurdles, particularly in forming, lubrication, and sealant application. Close collaboration and advanced solutions helped stabilize processes and ensure consistent quality. Additionally, working with aluminum for the first time added complexity, requiring further process adaptation and expertise.
Processing the water-based sealant Darex WBC 733 PHV on high-speed units proved far more challenging than anticipated when combined with a new PVC-free coil coating.
The rotary liners use fine nozzles that dispense adhesive in a rotary motion. Due to the close nozzle spacing, minor adjustments at one point affected neighboring positions — disrupting pressure ratios and making precise calibration nearly impossible.
Additionally, the PVC-free coating interacted with the coil lubricant, intensifying the dewetting effect. The sealant began shrinking and forming holes — unacceptable in food-grade metal packaging. Rejection rates climbed sharply.
Giuseppe Scarola, Operations Manager at Easytech
Henkel and Easytech worked closely to optimize equipment and application parameters - testing filling volumes, analyzing sealant viscosity under varying production conditions, and aligning the process to pet food packaging requirements.
A key breakthrough came from redesigning the stirring process. Henkel identified insufficient homogeneity of Darex WBC 733 PHV as a root cause of poor distribution accuracy. Installing a new stirrer delivered a more homogeneous sealant structure and significantly reduced the dewetting effect.
Further measures were implemented across the process chain: the coil supplier adjusted relubrication to minimize interactions with the sealant, while Easytech optimized internal process steps to stabilize application conditions. Henkel also provided hands-on training for the rotary liner systems and supported fine-tuning of the units. Despite the technical complexity, collaboration remained constructive throughout - enabling the launch of series production after six months.
With Henkel's support, Easytech successfully completed the transition to PVC-free coil coating. Can-end production has been running stably on all four rotary liners for over 12 months. Darex WBC 733 PHV is applied reliably and evenly, rejection rates have dropped considerably, and the end customer's requirements are fully met.
The real success, however, lies in the collaborative approach. Henkel supported Easytech through a far more complex project than initially anticipated, demonstrating deep understanding of process details, materials, and on-site challenges at every stage.
As a technical partner with deep expertise in products, processes, and applications, Henkel helped analyze problems and deliver concrete solutions — reflecting its commitment to supportive partnerships and sustainable service.
A technically demanding project evolved into a trust-based collaboration, proving that the right partner makes even unexpected challenges surmountable.
The exchange between Henkel and Easytech continues beyond the production ramp-up, with Henkel supporting stability as volumes grow in the dynamic pet food segment.
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