700 million pasta bags in 30 years

Long and short cut pas­ta prod­ucts are pop­u­lar all over the world. They were prob­a­bly invent­ed inde­pen­dent­ly of each oth­er in Chi­na and the Mediter­ranean region. How­ev­er, a 4000-year-old pas­ta pot found in Chi­na in 2005 gives the Asians the hon­our of being the first “pas­ta inven­tors”. Today, how­ev­er, we asso­ciate pas­ta pri­mar­i­ly with Italy. There are almost 600 types of pas­ta in the world, 200 of which come from Italy alone. The tra­di­tion­al Mediter­ranean food began its tri­umphal pro­ces­sion in Ger­many in the six­ties of the last cen­tu­ry. But pas­ta is also very pop­u­lar fur­ther north.

Myl­lyn Paras is a tra­di­tion­al Finnish com­pa­ny that man­u­fac­tures, mar­kets and dis­trib­utes flour, flakes, cere­als and pas­ta as well as frozen dough and bak­ery prod­ucts. The com­pa­ny was found­ed in 1928 and today employs about 110 peo­ple. The group’s two fac­to­ries are locat­ed in the city of Hyvinkää, 50 kilo­me­ters from Helsin­ki. In Fin­land, Myl­lyn Paras is among the best-known food brands and mar­ket leader for pas­ta. The group serves the Finnish mar­ket and also exports its prod­ucts internationally.

For fur­ther details: www.myllynparas.com  

30 years of con­tin­u­ous production 

Myl­lyn Paras has been pack­ag­ing prod­ucts with Rove­ma Form Fill and Seal machines since 1989. Recent­ly, a spe­cial mile­stone was reached: the 700th mil­lionth pas­ta bag exit­ed the pro­duc­tion line of one of these vet­er­ans. Both cus­tomer and sup­pli­er are par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of this, because 30 years of almost con­tin­u­ous pro­duc­tion, around the clock, is an amaz­ing achieve­ment and there is no end in sight. The robust Rove­ma Form Fill and Seal machine is ser­viced reg­u­lar­ly and gets high marks for this recur­ring activ­i­ty as well: “The main­te­nance work on the Rove­ma VFFS machines is easy and quick to car­ry out” con­firms the Myl­lyn Paras team.

The basis for such a sol­id per­for­mance is attrib­uted to the good coop­er­a­tion between the cus­tomer, the local rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Fin­land and the machine builder Rove­ma, which man­u­fac­tures the machines at the main pro­duc­tion site in Fer­n­wald, Ger­many, tai­lored specif­i­cal­ly to cus­tomer specifications.

Coop­er­a­tion and service

The pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence with the Form Fill Seal machine for pasta 
was cer­tain­ly one of the most impor­tant rea­sons for Myl­lyn Paras 
to opt for two addi­tion­al Rove­ma machines in 2015. Since then, 
two Rove­ma VPI 400 with swivel­ing cross seal­ing sta­tion have 
been in oper­a­tion at the plant, togeth­er they have also already 
pro­duced an impres­sive 10 mil­lion bags of oat­meal in this short 
time. In addi­tion to the oat flakes, bread­crumbs are also packed 
on the machines. Infeed is done via Rove­ma’s SDH auger dosing 
sys­tem, which dos­es pre­cise­ly and quick­ly. The machines run in 
2 shift oper­a­tion five days a week.

The cus­tomer empha­sizes that, in 
addi­tion to the pos­i­tive experience 
with the first machines mentioned 
above, the good price-qual­i­ty ratio 
and easy main­te­nance were also 
impor­tant rea­sons for their renewed 
deci­sion in favour of Rovema. 
In addi­tion to pack­ing in pillow 
bags, the Rove­ma VPI 400 also 
allows the use of stand-up zip bags, 
anoth­er impor­tant cri­te­ri­on for Myl­lyn Paras.

Con­clu­sion of the cus­tomer: “To this day, the Rove­ma machines meet all our require­ments in terms of per­for­mance, safe­ty and com­fort. The tech­ni­cians who have looked after us over the years have pro­vid­ed advice and assis­tance to the local oper­a­tors and con­tin­ue to do so to this day.”

The respon­si­ble Rove­ma Area Sales Man­ag­er, Lars Ander­sen, explains with a twin­kle in his eye: “I tell many cus­tomers that unfor­tu­nate­ly the Rove­ma machines all last a long time, so we often don’t see each oth­er again imme­di­ate­ly, but only after many years. Of course, I am all the more pleased when the pack­ag­ing pro­duced by our machines con­tributes to the cus­tomer’s suc­cess and a new invest­ment becomes nec­es­sary due to an increase in capacity.”

Alter­na­tive pack­ag­ing materials

In 1989, when Rove­ma VFFS machines packed their first short cut pas­ta in Fin­land, envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness was not yet a pri­or­i­ty for many peo­ple. Con­se­quent­ly, prod­uct safe­ty and machin­abil­i­ty of the pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als were more impor­tant than their sus­tain­able prop­er­ties in terms of recy­cling. Over the last three decades, the demand from end con­sumers and pro­duc­ers for recy­clable pack­ag­ing has grown. Today, Myl­lyn Paras uses a mono-mate­r­i­al made of the polypropy­lene vari­ants CPP/OPP for all three prod­ucts packed on Rove­ma machines in Hyvinkää. Polypropy­lene is close­ly relat­ed to poly­eth­yl­ene (PE), but is more dimen­sion­al­ly sta­ble and heat resis­tant. All ROVEMA Form Fill and Seal machines with heat seal­ing sys­tem can process polypropy­lene pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als. When chang­ing from com­pos­ite pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als to this mono mate­r­i­al, usu­al­ly no per­for­mance loss­es are to be expect­ed. Most Euro­pean coun­tries can recy­cle polypropy­lene mono mate­ri­als today; also in Fin­land, this is stan­dard today. 

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty through a holis­tic approach 

Pack­ag­ing, and the pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al used, has always been an impor­tant dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing fac­tor. Due to the cur­rent dis­cus­sion in con­nec­tion with plas­tic and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, new pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als have come into par­tic­u­lar focus. There­fore, Rove­ma offers its cus­tomers tai­lor-made adap­ta­tions to alter­na­tive pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als. After all, the desire for alter­na­tive pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als does not only con­cern new pack­ag­ing machines. Exist­ing machines should also be able to process these new pack­ag­ing materials.

Rovema’s machine tech­nol­o­gy allows man­u­fac­tur­ers the free choice of pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als. The focus is clear­ly on future proof­ing the machines. In close coop­er­a­tion with the cus­tomer, Rove­ma ana­lyzes the inter­ac­tion between machine, pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al, and prod­uct in detail and can thus repeat­ed­ly adjust to chang­ing mar­ket require­ments in the course of the machine’s life. Advice to the cus­tomer is pro­vid­ed on an indi­vid­ual basis and includes both exist­ing machines and pos­si­ble new investments.

In order to pro­vide cus­tomers with the best pos­si­ble advice, Rove­ma set up its own tech­ni­cal cen­ter back in the late 1980s. Here, among oth­er things, pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al tests are car­ried out under pro­duc­tion con­di­tions. This gives cus­tomers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to test the prop­er­ties of the new mate­r­i­al in advance and to assess the changes to inter­nal processes.

Close coop­er­a­tion with the cus­tomer is essen­tial for a pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al test. Orig­i­nal prod­uct and the desired pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al must be pro­vid­ed; the exist­ing machine and the pro­duc­tion con­di­tions at the cus­tomer’s site must be known. The empir­i­cal val­ues of past pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al tests, which have been anony­mous­ly fed into a data­base, often allow Rove­ma to sug­gest ref­er­ence-pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als for the respec­tive applications.

How­ev­er, the result­ing mea­sures that have to be tak­en on the exist­ing machine often vary great­ly. Depend­ing on the over­all height of the frame, exist­ing form­ing shoul­der and prop­er­ties, for exam­ple stiff­ness and punc­ture resis­tance of the new pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al, the nec­es­sary machine adap­ta­tion turns out to be more or less com­plex. The exact assess­ment and the suit­able test set­up are there­fore actu­al­ly only pos­si­ble with the help of the cus­tomer despite the exten­sive experience.

Respon­si­ble Sales Man­ag­er for Rove­ma GmbH machines at Orat Oy, Mr. Roni Ekebom:

“We at Orat Oy and me per­son­al­ly of course are delight­ed for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent Rove­ma GmbH machines in Fin­land and Esto­nia. This case at Myl­lyn Paras Oy is a per­fect show­case of the reli­able per­for­mance of Rove­ma GmbH machines. The rela­tion­ship with Myl­lyn Paras Oy has last­ed for years due to open dia­logue between the par­ties and of course per­son­al rela­tion­ship. We at Orat Oy want to express our grat­i­tude towards Myl­lyn Paras for their pos­i­tive approach to share their sto­ry with the proven suc­cess with Rove­ma GmbH machines in their dai­ly production.”