CAMA is a leading packaging technology company that has been supporting international customers – big and small – since 1981. Its core business is the design, engineering and production of high-technology secondary and tertiary packaging systems and complete turnkey lines for customers in both the food and non-food markets.
Spending 5% of its annual turnover on research and development has put it in a very capable position to conquer the world’s most complex packaging challenges, with over 3,400 machines installed globally, many at multi-site installations for the world’s biggest companies and consumer brands.
But Cama is also equally at home supporting smaller companies with their similarly challenging packaging issues. With such a broad spread of technologies and a class-leading machine portfolio, Cama can deliver exactly what customers need, based on their precise product-and-packaging requirements.
For the bakery industry it can offer multiple secondary formats, including sleeves, hinged-lid boxes, cartons, display boxes, wraparound formats and RSC boxes. And for tertiary packaging it offers RSC, display boxes and wraparound formats.
Cama’s significant R&D investment means its machine designs are rarely static, with improvements and technology transfer from other markets being quickly and efficiently incorporated into all future machine variants.
An example of a major recent innovation, which is set to gain significant traction in the bakery industry, is the use of labels to replace flow wrapping.
Cama’s new labelling technology can replace multi-pack flow wraps with labels that secure individual products in shelf-ready collations. Typical applications include individual cake bars, wafers, chocolate bars, noodle packs or wet wipes, all of which can be secured together by a common shared label and then ‘broken off’ individually and used/ consumed as required.
The primary packaging is still required to maintain product integrity, especially for baked goods, but the secondary stickers or labels use the same chemical family as the primary packaging, which means they can be recycled in the same process.
This move to mono-material packaging is a major first step to making waste collection and recycling more effective. Another advantage of this approach is the flexibility is gives to branding and marketing as the sti ckers/labels can be printed on demand – even lineside – and easily tailored to discrete batches.
The reinforce the potential of this technology, Cama is currently developing a highly integrated turnkey packaging line for a large multinational customer that combines the ability to collate and package individual products into shelf-ready cases or as labelled multi packs into shipping cases. Not only does this solution handle multiple case styles, but its modular design flexibility means it can more easily adapt to available factory real estate.
Changeover is also tool-free and both packaging processes are highly optimized, ensuring that they do not compromise the speed of any upstream processes.
European markets will soon see the introduction of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) which will define staged requirements for recyclability, the use of recycled materials and overall waste reduction.
This sustainability driven initiative means that companies must ensure that their packaging is compliant with regulations. But for many companies an overnight changeover to new materials, tyles and processes is simply not possible, which means they need technology that can adapt as the market evolves, including changeovers to more sustainable materials.
The legislation is also “loose” enough that individual companies can adopt and enforce the new legislation slightly differently, which means international machine suppliers must make sure that their technology can be adapted to serve different market requirements.
Although Gen Z and families with children are sold on the eco packaging message older generations are less inclined to purchase based on eco credentials. It’s not that they won’t buy products, they will if they are the same price or cheaper.
At this stage, sustainability does not have a significant positive impact on sales. When new materials are used, packaging-machine dynamics must be tailored to suit the physics of the material. Not only do new eco materials require gentler handling, but the material properties can change form one supplier to the next.
Until these polymer formations have been widely perfected and distributed, it is up to the machine suppliers to give their customers the ability to fine tune packaging processes and machine dynamics.
And this is not just for flow wraps, doypacks and other packaging formats are also heavily affected. And when it comes to branding, Cama has a packaging design team that is second to none.
With extensive experience across many industries and applications, it can bring the holistic approach that is needed to balance and enhance every single input that has an impact on the packaging process, such as physical features, functional capabilities, material types & volumes, sustainability, logistics, throughput, handling dynamics… this list goes on and on, but nothing can be discounted.
