In manufacturing production lines around the globe, stretch film wrapping machines are used to automate the end of line packaging process. This practice saves manufacturers significantly in labor expenses, and cuts back on the wasting of film material that accommodates manual film wrapping. When shipping products to distributors efficiently, there are no more practical solutions than automated film wrapping.

That is, of course, except for when those products are organic foods, such as fruits or vegetables. These products need constant oxygen flow and breathability to keep their quality; something that is sacrificed with standard stretch film wrapping applications.

How can these manufacturers experience the same efficient technologies, packaging and savings as the manufacturers of other products, without stretch wrapping machines? A technology similar to stretch wrapping, automated stretch roping provides the perfect solution for these specialized industries.

Stretch Roping: Making Automation Organic

Organic and fresh food manufacturers seeking to integrate automated solutions in their production lines often choose stretch film roping, as these techniques allow full breathability for packaged products. Among other breathable packaging solutions, such as mesh, or netting, covers and vented film, roped stretch film stands out as not only the most practical technique, but also as the most secure.

Fruits, vegetables and other organic products that require packaging for distribution need a free flow of air to maintain their appearance, quality and safety. Breathable stretch roping minimizes product quality decline while products reach distributors, ensuring that these facilities receive products that live up to the same quality standard as when they left your production line.

Automated stretch roping applications also overcome the common weaknesses of netting and vented film, such as net entanglement, film overuse, incredibly high cost-per-load, and reduced film holding power. It’s for these reasons that so many organic food manufacturers now choose automated stretch roping to prepare and package their products.

No Loss of Load Security

When unitizing and preparing organic product pallets for distribution, production line manufacturers prefer stretch film roping over alternative solutions for the security this technology ensures of their products.

As seen in the other methods of breathable packaging, allowing a steady airflow to reach products often comes at a cost to a product pallet’s strength and integrity. Fortunately, this is avoided with stretch roping packaging automation, which not only ensures optimum load security, but can even increase this security in some cases.

Pre-stretched roping materials exert the greatest holding pressure on organic product pallet loads, far more so than vented wrapping alternatives. With stretch roping, load stability is often equal to standard stretch wrapping (the automated film without any perforations or airflow augmentations), and a great deal stronger than mesh packaging.

The way stretch roping can be applied also increases its effectiveness with heavier product loads. Roping can be applied to a product pallet in the standard, circular motion of standard stretch wrapping, or specifically tailed for need-based applications; one common example is breathable stretch roping in an “X” pattern, which creates additional downward pressure on pallet loads.

The Most Efficient Organic Wrapping Process

Automated stretch roping brings the same efficiency and material savings its non-breathable counterparts, as it can be completed with the same techniques and motions of standard stretch wrapping. Beyond the packaging speeds typically associated with stretch pallet automation, these roping solutions, specifically, cut down on the overconsumption affiliated with other organic packaging technologies.

Netting, mesh packaging materials cannot be pre-stretched to fit to a pallet load, often contracts during transportation, forming tangled messes and possibly resulting in lift truck damage. As these must be tight extremely tight to secure pallet loads, operators will often use an unnecessary amount of netting to secure their products. Post-stretching also affects load integrity, unlike pre-stretched film roping.

Another alternative organic packaging solution, perforated stretch film, comes a little closer to than netting to matching stretch roping’s efficiency, but ultimately falls short. Depending on the size of the perforations in the material, this technique can actually reduce a pallet load’s holding power, leading to the need for heavier duty wrapping or multiple layers of film. On top of this, perforated wrapping does not even come close to matching the breathability of stretch film roping.

When all is said and done, these packaging solutions can cost up to four times more than stretch film roping; the use of film, handling challenges, lesser airflows and security weaknesses make these packaging options impractical when handling organic, oxygen-sensitive foods like fruits and vegetables.

If you in an industry that specializes in organic food production and distribution, consider automated stretch film roping for your packaging needs. These technologies cost a fraction of their alternatives, in both the short and long term, and maintain the efficiency seen with standard film wrapping. To learn more about what aerated automation technology can bring to your unitized pallet loading operations, contact us today.