If a customer ever has been lured towards a product or been tempted to buy something purely based on how it looks from the outside, that would determine the importance of packaging, to the success or failure of a product. 

Packaging ready to eat  food in flexible packaging or pouches is the most acceptable form of food preservation. Retorted pouches represent a unique combination of package, process, and product technology with potential economic benefits. Traditionally, tin containers have contributed to a large extent in building confidence in processed foods. The increasing awareness and aversion to accept other methods of food preservation, irradiation, and the like, have created a vast scope for retort processing of foods. The Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has done pioneering work in the field of retort pouch processing of various Indian foods using indigenous materials and equipment.

However, ideal packaging not only makes a product visually or aesthetically pleasing but also greatly enhances its functionality and utility. With recent advancements products are so much safer than they used to be and much better equipped to survive all transportation and shipping hazards or the ‘shelf life’ at a retail store.

One such packaging machine that is gaining popularity and seeing increased sales for the convenience and ease that it provides is automatic pouch sealing machines. 

They can be used easily, are extremely simple, and guarantee superior quality of sealing. They can vary from very small and handy sizes to jumbo pouches.

The RTE food industry can benefit a lot from having an automatic sealing machine because packaging helps conserve many food items such as meat, cheeses, and many pre-made dishes with gravy that otherwise run the risk of getting contaminated before reaching the customers. Good quality sealing will not tear them during transportation.

Pouch Sealing machines are used in the packaging industry as they are much more affordable for packing than other materials. 

Full automatic HFFS machines or PFS machines are out of budget for startups and need minimum processing capacity to afford these machines. But semi automatic bag sealing machines are very simple to maintain and cost-effective in comparison to other packing machines. 

A number of different virgins, multiplayer, and co-extruded packaging materials such as polypropylene nylon, polyester cast polypropylene, and polyester aluminum foil cast polypropylene have been evaluated for their mechanical strength to withstand retort conditions at temperature up to 135oC, optimum barrier properties, compatibility with the food products and required shelf life of 12 months under ambient conditions. DRDO has developed various vegetarian and non-vegetarian food for the services. Some of the products include sooji halwa, upma, channa curry, chicken curry, mutton curry, fish curry, vegetable pulav, chicken pulav, potato-peas curry, mushroom curry, and much more. The technology for retort pouch processing of food has been transferred to 17 firms. Some of them are already supplying processed food to the armed forces. It is also being exported to the developed countries to cater to the food requirements of ethnic populations from the Indian subcontinent.

• Single head for hassle-free operation
• Integrated special cooling system
• Optimized design for easy use
• Pneumatically operated high-pressure sealing
• 10 mm sealing width
• Ideal for retort pouch packing
• 300 mm sealing length
• User-friendly consumable replacement 

The optimal control theory was used to determine the optimum retort temperature profile for quality retention at a given level of sterilizing value in conduction-heating of foods in retortable pouches. The cook-value (C-value) was employed to describe quality changes. Optimization was considered to be a constrained optimal control problem with unspecified terminal time, and it was solved numerically, using the conjugate gradient minimization method. Optimum retort temperature profiles were determined for the volume average and surface C-values for browning reactions. Final C-value for volume average decreased by 10% as compared with that for optimum constant retort temperature, and the value for surface decreased by 30%. This method may be applicable to heat sterilization of canned foods as well.

No matter what the product or industry, automatic pouch sealing machines are a must for you!