IMA: Speeding Single-Serve Production

by

By Dan Shryock

As consumer demand for single-serve coffee products continues to grow, smaller roasters are looking for a way to enter the market. One Italian packaging machine manufacturer believes it has the solution.

 IMA (Industria Macchine Automatiche S.p.A.), an Italian packaging solutions provider, has introduced the GIMA 590 rotary capsule filling and sealing machine.

“We started seeing all the small producers wanted to have their own technology and machinery and produce capsules themselves. They wanted to control their own product and keep the coffee fresh,” said GIMA area manager Simone Capponcelli during a recent visit to the company’s manufacturing facility in Bologna, Italy. “We took our big (595) machine and made a smaller version of it. That’s how the 590 was born with features that would be interesting for a small producer.”

The 590 machine allows a roaster to fill as few as 100 capsules per minute. As production increases, the machine easily can shift to 200 capsules per minute. It’s easy to use and easy to clean.

The GIMA 590 machine looks small inside the spacious assembly area. It’s designed that way to accommodate roasters’ smaller production areas, Capponcelli said. The machine’s small 2-by-2-meter footprint occupies very little of the production floor.

Italian leadership

“These are high quality machines, top level,” Capponcelli said. “Our machine must be able to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It must be made with the best materials available. When customers buy an expensive machine, they expect it to be made in Italy. It’s like cars and motorbikes. The car must be made in Italy. Even the parts. It must be fully designed and built in Italy.”

IMA, founded in 1961, is a world leader in the design and manufacturing of automatic machines specializing in the tea, coffee, dairy, food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries.  The company has 38 manufacturing locations throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and China and proclaims a sales network covering nearly 80 countries.

The company employs more than 5,000 people with over 500 assigned to research and development in the areas of process and packaging solutions. Sales in 2015 totaled more than €1.1 billion for the firm traded on the Milan Stock Exchange.

Despite the company’s international reach the center of activity is in suburban Bologna, the heart of what they like to call the Italian packaging valley, a cluster of advanced mechanics and industrial automation companies in Emilia Romagna. Italian companies now export more packaging machines than any other country, surpassing Germany in 2013, Capponcelli said. The Italian packaging valley is responsible for 60% of such production worldwide.

“It’s huge here,” he says. “It’s not just huge for companies like GIMA making the machines but for all the suppliers around that are working for us.”

The GIMA group emphasizes an integrated approach to coffee packaging whether a customer seeks support for hard or soft pods, espresso capsules, K-cups, or bags.

“We don’t make only the primary product, the capsule, or the pod. We make bags, cases, palettes,” Capponcelli said. “If you want to get a line product from A to Z, we take responsibility for the entire line. From the ground coffee to the palette. We have many competitors out there but some are making only the capsules, some are making only the bags or the cartons. We have a dedicated division that’s manufacturing end-of-line machines for all our companies.”

There are advantages to this, he said. “You have only one single interface, one single person to talk with.”

Emphasis on capsules

Capponcelli said the company’s emphasis on capsules is easy to understand. “Capsules give you many opportunities. They are not only for coffee but also tea, chocolate, soups, so many different things,” he said.

Capsules were “the next big thing” for IMA five years ago, Capponcelli said. “Now it’s a really big thing for us.”

In fact, he said the company projects 86% of machine sales this year will involve capsule filling as well as relevant cartooning and end-of-line equipment.

“Nespresso is the most widely used coffee capsule system in the world,” Capponcelli said. “The consumption is around 18 to 20 billion capsules a year. The Nespresso patent expired so now the capsule is an open platform. If you want to make an espresso capsule clone, you can do it.

In North America, the K-cup is king and, like the espresso machine, the K-cup platform is open to clones as well. About 28 % of North American households have a K-cup brewing machine, he said, and 14.5 billion capsules are produced for coffee and tea consumption and more.

Delivering a double dose

The company also made some improvements to its larger 595 capsule filling and sealing machine. The 595 is a compact machine capable of producing 1,200 capsules a minute. Its modular design allows easy integration of functions as product lines dictate.  It is efficient and precise in its dosing, the company says, and it requires minimum maintenance.

And, responding to customer input, GIMA added some new features to the 595. The machine now can double dose capsules. Each unit can be filled with a primary product such as dark roast coffee with a second product like dried milk at the same time.

The 595 also can deliver a micro dose when a touch of flavor is needed. This can be used, for example, when a coffee capsule is flavored with hazelnut or vanilla. A quick spray is added before the capsule is sealed.

Turnkey packaging

IMA provides packaging solutions for a variety of products and needs. If coffee packaging is the focus, IMA has machines for pods, injected capsules and thermoformed capsules for both espresso and K-cup production.

Beyond single-serve, there’s packaging equipment for stand-up bags, vacuum packs, pillow bags, and heat-sealed outer envelopes. Machinery for bagging coffee beans or ground coffee is developed by ILAPAK, a division acquired by IMA three years ago in order to focus on vertical bagging machines.

To learn more: gima590.ima.it