Cooperation for sustainable investment

KHS and Martens are con­tin­u­ing their joint strat­e­gy for reduc­ing pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al. Just last year the tra­di­tion­al Bel­gian brew­ery invest­ed in an Innopack Nature Mul­ti­Pack machine which uses adhe­sive dots to join PET bot­tles into sta­ble packs. Now the group is plan­ning to pur­chase a sec­ond NMP machine, which process­es cans, from KHS. Thanks to the expan­sion the brew­ery will have greater flex­i­bil­i­ty to meet the mar­ket’s grow­ing demand for envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly pack­ag­ing. The NMP project is just one exam­ple of the Dort­mund-based full-range sup­pli­er’s steadi­ly grow­ing port­fo­lio of sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing solutions.
Since 2020 the com­pa­ny has been rely­ing on the mate­r­i­al-sav­ing Nature Mul­ti­Pack from KHS. Togeth­er the long-stand­ing part­ners imple­ment­ed film-free six-packs made of PET bot­tles for the retail trade. The response to the alter­na­tive to clas­sic shrink film has been very positive:

 
“We were able to con­vince both our cus­tomers and con­sumers. The high demand shows that envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly pack­ag­ing is in high demand.”
— Jan Martens, Brew­ery Manager
 

Into new markets with Nature MultiPack

Thanks to the new line, the Bel­gian beer pro­duc­er will in future be able to process not only PET bot­tles but also cans into sta­ble yet eas­i­ly sep­a­ra­ble packs. This elim­i­nates the need for shrink film or card­board pack­ag­ing and reduces mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion by up to 90 per­cent. “This ben­e­fits both con­sumers and the envi­ron­ment,” says the brew­ery boss.
While the brew­ery pro­duces at an out­put of up to 54,000 con­tain­ers per hour, which is suf­fi­cient for them, KHS now also offers the Innopack Nature­Mul­ti­Pack machine for the high-per­for­mance range. This fur­ther devel­oped vari­ant enables up to 90,000 con­tain­ers per hour — and even up to 108,000 if the capac­i­ty is exceeded.
This should make it pos­si­ble to pen­e­trate new mar­kets. “Retail­ers are increas­ing­ly look­ing for envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly pack­ag­ing options. I am very con­fi­dent that our resource-sav­ing Nature Mul­ti­Pack solu­tions will meet with great inter­est,” pre­dicts the brew­ery boss. Now his brew­ery has the nec­es­sary flex­i­bil­i­ty to meet the cur­rent needs of the trade in the best pos­si­ble way.
 

Secondary packaging: KHS offers an extensive portfolio

The Nature Mul­ti­Pack is just one exam­ple of the con­tin­u­ous­ly increas­ing vari­ety of sus­tain­able and for­ward-look­ing sec­ondary pack­ag­ing from KHS. The Dort­mund-based full-range sup­pli­er pur­sues a clear strat­e­gy of tak­ing a holis­tic view, as Sören Stor­beck, Glob­al Prod­uct Account Man­ag­er Pack­ag­ing at KHS, explains, “Our over­rid­ing aim Page 3 of 6 is to meet every need of our cus­tomers in the best pos­si­ble way. We there­fore rely on a com­pre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of line and pack­ag­ing solu­tions, as well as on our glob­al ser­vice net­work, which is avail­able to our cus­tomers around the clock.”
The line man­u­fac­tur­er’s lat­est inno­va­tions include the Innopack Kisters Wrap­around Shrink Paper Pack­er (WSPP A), which can pack cans either in paper, card­board or film. This vari­ety is made pos­si­ble by the mod­u­lar design of all Innopack Kisters machines. This allows exist­ing mod­els to be quick­ly and flex­i­bly retro­fit­ted with addi­tion­al paper func­tion­al­i­ty. With its com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent process mod­ules, a WSPP A, for exam­ple, can process three dif­fer­ent types of sec­ondary pack­ag­ing: the wrap­around car­ton, the tray, and the pad, which can be wrapped either in paper or shrink film. As of now, it is also pos­si­ble to process film made from 100 per­cent recy­clate on Innopack Kisters machines — with­out any loss of qual­i­ty or performance.
Anoth­er pio­neer­ing pack­ag­ing alter­na­tive can be pro­duced with the new Innopack Kisters CNP (Car­ton Nature Pack­er). This high-per­for­mance, flex­i­ble pack­er uses cor­ru­gat­ed card­board and sol­id board tops to join cans togeth­er to form rigid packs. KHS’ devel­op­ment spir­it does­n’t stop there, how­ev­er: “We’re striv­ing for even more effi­cient and sus­tain­able solu­tions — whether in the field of pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, or ter­tiary pack­ag­ing,” says Stor­beck. “Togeth­er with our cus­tomers and part­ners we’re con­stant­ly work­ing on con­serv­ing even more resources and fur­ther strength­en­ing the recy­cling loop.”