Markets

Wraps UK supplies shrink wrapping machinery and film to a wide number of industries. It is true to say that almost all industries use shrink wrapping to some extent. The majority of applications come from the following six market sectors.

Food and Drink

The food and drinks industry is a large consumer of both shrink wrapping machines and materials. Shrink wrapping is used for both the primary presentation wrap for products such as confectionery as well as being used for transit packs.

Typically products despatched to the supermarkets arrive either in shelf ready packaging, shrinkwrapped trays of products or collated and wrapped loose without a tray. Shrink wrapping using either polyethylene or polyolefin can be used for all these packaging styles and the machinery selected depends greatly on the speed of the application and the strength of the protective packaging required.

A recent market development has been the requirement to package collations of drinks cans in printed film. To achieve this Wraps UK supplies machinery that uses a single roll of printed shrink film which is registered and precisely cut to length during the wrapping process.

Wraps UK supplies machinery for all forms of food and drink shrinkwrapping, with either collating systems for loose bottles and packs or in line production for pre loaded cardboard trays and shelf ready packs. The range of shrink packaging machinery allows for both manual, slow speed production up to high speed in line fully automatic product handling and wrapping systems.

Print and paper packaging and wrapping

The print and paper industries use shrink wrapping machines for both presentation and transit wrapping purposes. The types of products wrapped range from collations of envelopes through to stacks of magazines for distribution.

Many print work customers specify that the finished printed products, be they loose leaf exercise books, business forms or large format calendars are protected at point of sale. L-sealing machines are ideal for handling the large size range of products produced and for providing a completely enclosed overwrap. The use of special property, low shrink polyolefin films ensures that no curl is imparted into the product during the wrapping process. For very low speed applications a low cost chamber machine is ideal whilst a side sealer shrink wrapping machine is capable of speeds up to 60 wraps per minute.

For magazine production two reel sleeve wrapping machines are often used to overwrap the stacks of magazines or books. By using wide film and special shrink tunnel venting it is possible to completely enclose the polyethylene wrapped pack. Wraps UK supplies both low speed, hand fed machines as well as fully integrated 30 packs per minute systems.

Laundry

Shrink wrapping in the laundry industry is used to protect the cleaned product before it arrives at its final destination, be it a blanket for use with an air line or a bundle of towels for supply to a hospital.

Where a straightforward bag is required to protect a garment or blanket, an L-sealer is the ideal system. If no shrinking is applied to an L-sealed pack, the resulting loose bag produces an ideal protective covering. Wraps UK automatic L sealers can use both polyolefin or, predominantly for the laundry industry, low cost polyethylene. Systems can either be low speed and manual or fully automatic, depending on volume.

For the large scale laundry where high volumes of towels or garments are being laundered and ironed, Wraps UK supplies fully automatic sleeve wrapping systems for speeds up to 25 per minute. Using thin, low cost, 30 micron polyethylene, randomly sized laundered products can all be completely enclosed in film. Through heat shrinking, the enclosed pack can be reduced in volume, making distribution easier when compared to wrapping in paper.

Many years of experience in the laundry industry means that the shrinkwrapping machines supplied are suitably robust to work in a continuous production environment. Wraps UK has developed a range of ancillary equipment to feed the shrink wrapper to ensure that multiple production lines can feed one wrapper and centralisation systems ensure that the garments are correctly positioned before wrapping.

Cosmetics, Toiletries and Pharmaceutical

Shrinkwrapping and overwrapping are used for the presentation wrap around individual cosmetic and perfume cartons. Depending upon the customer requirement, a shrink wrap finish can be provided by any of Wraps UK L sealing machines or, if a diamond point end fold is required, one of Marden Edwards’ overwrappers. (Wraps UK’s parent company)

For irregularly shaped gift sets, or for when a special offer requires two packs be collated together, a chamber L sealing machine is ideal. Because the product is stationery when the sealing takes place and it is loaded into the machine by hand, the stability of the product is not a problem.

Collating two reel sleevewrappers are often used for transit packs of pharmaceutical products. The product is fed to the machine from the side and the integrated collating system produces the required collation format before it is pushed through the film web. All Wraps UK AS range of machines can be supplied with an integrated collation system.

Industrial, household and building products

Shrink wrapping is used to wrap a vast array of industrial, household and building products with both presentation and transit wrapping being used.

L-sealing machines are particularly suitable for building products, where a simple bag is required to fully protect the product before distribution. For example, using Wraps UK developed feeding systems pipe fittings can be automatically packaged rather than requiring manual packing into pre-made polyethylene bags.

L sealing is often used for wrapping wood products, such as picture frames and mirrors where it is essential the product is not scratched before it reaches the consumer.

Sleeve wrapping systems lend themselves well to large format items, such as long extrusions or kitchen furniture. Because there is no limit to the length of product that can be fed through a sleeve wrapper, long items are well suited to being wrapped in polyethylene. Wraps UK specialises in the supply of the product handling systems necessary to convey the product into the shrink wrapper.

DVDs, Electronic goods and Games

For DVDs, electronic goods and games the purpose of shrink wrapping is to ensure that the product has not been tampered with before it leaves the store.

L sealing is used predominantly to ensure that small items cannot be removed from a packaged games box before it has left the store. Similarly for DVDs and computer games, consumers are assured that the content of their purchases are intact. For the shop, the benefit is in knowing that it cannot have sold an empty case and can resist consumers claiming otherwise.