Cutting-edge technologies for the supply chain of tea

ACMA, a Coesia company, offers a complete range of green and cost-effective machines capable of covering, thanks to the integrated auxiliary groups, even the stages of the process downstream of tea bags packing. With the addition of research on low-impact materials and the development of tailor-made solutions.

Thanks to the past acquisitions, ACMA has acquired an exclusive know-how for primary packaging in the tea sector that added to the many years of proven experience, has made possible to achieve a leading role in this market. In recent years, the R&D department has developed a series of solutions to further expand the company’s portfolio, focusing on secondary packaging. ACMA’s know-how embraces the tea bags packaging technologies in different formats and at different speeds, to satisfy any request coming from the market. In the last years it has also refined various solutions for secondary packaging, to meet the needs of the different customers with which it interfaces.

Development of eco-friendly solutions

ACMA works closely with all the players in the sector, including the main companies active in the production of wrapping materials.

Collaboration with these realities is essential to pursue the principles of sustainability that ACMA has joined for some time. Indeed, ACMA’s goal is not only to provide savings to the customer (e.g., through lower consumption of material thanks to a more efficient usage of them), but its goal is also to respect the environment as much as possible, proposing solutions that have the lowest possible impact.

The ACMA machines that produce heat-sealed packages can work with recyclable and biodegradable materials such as PLA. Moreover, ACMA solutions are designed to reduce energy consumption and outline more eco-friendly machines. Another example of how products move in this green direction is the TD 300, a machine specific for double chamber that uses a knot to join the tag to the bag, avoiding the use of glues and staples.

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The possibilities of packaging offered by ACMA technology are numerous and heterogeneous. Let’s see some of them, recalling also that, as proof of the extreme flexibility of its solutions, the company has created a special version of the TM 320 dedicated to the packaging of coffee in bags, destined mainly for the South American market.

The pouch: flexibility first of all. Available on the TE 500, but also developed for the TD 300 and TM 320, the pouch al-lows to seal entire batches of bags in the same flexible bag, in quantities ranging from 20 to 150 units, allowing both a saving in the external packaging material and the costs of a possible solution in a cardboard box. In addition, particularly concerning individual boxes, the pouch solution allows significant savings in shipping costs, thanks to space optimization. This solution is ideal for the Horeca market, where the need to protect the fr-grance of tea is necessary with a predominant use of single-portion solutions.

Bag-in-bag: the multipack solution. Available on TM 320, but also implementable on TD 300, this configuration foresees the sealing of 2, 3, 4 or 5 outside bags at a time, allowing the re-duction of the external wrap-ping material. Therefore, it is possible to make packages that contain a limited quantity of bags, to facilitate the sale of a few units at a time. This popular solution is sold particularly in kiosks and small shops of Southeast Asia and North Africa markets.

Innovative, tamper evident and green. The latest addition to ACMA is a solution for the boxed packaging of ten bags that inherits some features from “Ecoshell”, award-winning packaging with innovative features, both in terms of sustainability and ease of use. In this case, this is a special advanced application, which has “tamper-proof” characteristics, to protect the solidity and safety of the package. The value proposition of this case is to offer a premium-looking box that can ensure that its contents are not tampered, avoiding the use of plastic-based over-wrapping. In addition, the box prevents the dispersion of tea powder out-side the box (which can typically leak out of the bag), ensuring a premium and sustainable image of its packaging.