Sustainable and safe packaging of vials

Sustainability is one of the most important trend topics in the packaging industry. Wherever possible, manufacturers opt for renewable resources, and Recipharm is one of them. The Swedish contract packer decided to package their customers' vials completely without plastic in the future. In the past, the vials were positioned in a plastic blister prior to cartoning.

Recipharm commissioned Harro Höfliger to design such a machine. In addition to dispensing with blisters, high flexibility was of particular importance: Depending on customer requirements, positioning of a variable quantity of vials per folding carton has to be possible. At the same time, particular attention was paid to product protection in order to avoid damage to the sensitive glass vials.

Harro Höfliger solved these challenges with a side-loading system. Instead of plastic blisters, mono cardboard inlays are used. These inlays are erected inside the machine, filled with the products and then inserted laterally into the folding carton. The inlays prevent the vials from touching each other.

A robot system ensures the desired flexibility: The pick & place unit picks up the required number of vials and inserts them into the inlay. In order to make sure that this process works reliably at all times, even with packages of different sizes, the Harro Höfliger experts tested the functionality in numerous test runs. At the same time, they provided support in the development of the packaging solution. That way, processes and top-opening folding cartons were optimally adapted to each other - so that cartoning is both reliable and environmentally friendly.