Packaging: Food producer cuts knives out of the packaging process

CornerStone Baking Company in Nashville, Tenn., supplies frozen-dough products and scoop-and-bake wet mix to major fast-food and family casual chains. The bakery packages product in large cardboard boxes and seals thousands of them per day. By deploying a new style of tape and tape applicator, the company created better seals that did not require a knife to open.

Before the new solution, Alan Barton, president of CornerStone Baking, says a few of his boxes would occasionally pop open. “But I didn’t realize I wasn’t doing the best job I could in applying tape to my box until I saw these new tape applicators in action,” he says. “The solution solved a problem I didn’t even know I had. Now, I am getting a better case seal, and I’m actually using less tape.”

The old approach was lacking proper tape adhesion—an issue magnified by the fact that the boxes are taped in a cold environment before being stored in freezers. Once tape is applied, the adhesive can take hours to finish making its bond.

The new box sealing solution combines a hot melt packaging tape with a high-speed tape applicator. The applicator uses patented technology that folds the edges of the tape as it’s applied. This feature provides double-thick edges to increase the thickness of the tape at its most vulnerable failure point where the tape folds over the edge of the carton. The folded edge also eliminates the need for knives to open boxes and prevents the potential for broken blades to contaminate product. It also eliminates costly product damage from knife cuts.

“It literally took minutes to install the tape applicator. I didn’t have to interrupt the process flow. The first box came through, taped with no problems.”

ShurTape Technologies
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