Edoardo Donati, Anico’s General Manager for more than twenty years, explains here below the process and stages of packaging production.
What do your clients ask you for? “Sustainability and green”, every business deal starts from these words. Those who do not take care of this will never be our customers and will continue to pack in film. But “no problem. There is room for everyone”.
We have been making paper packaging for 33 years and in the past we were even demonized “do you remember the wars against the use of paper and the problem of deforestation?”
Nowadays instead, everyone has realized that everything which is made of paper is beautiful because it is recyclable and sustainable: we have been saying this for ages and finally the facts support us.
How do you produce the packaging and for which types of products?
For us at Anico, the starting points are the customer’s request and need. It is important to create a synergy between food producer and packaging manufacturer.
“We create packaging for famous brands of coffee, pasta, biscuits, bakery, pet food, caster and icing sugar, yeast, spices and pizza bases. We also make packaging for frozen food. Therefore, it is obvious that each type of product must have the most suitable packaging for perfect preservation over time and storage”.
Is packaging production a teamwork?
The origin of a new packaging can start with:
– a first contact with our sales managers
– strong sales relationships
– long-standing and established practices with customers.
In particular, Edoardo continues:
“The new customer, after setting out his specific requirements, sends the chosen artwork to our technical department, which verifies the characteristics, optimization and feasibility. We can propose the most suitable and customized solutions for the realization of the artwork, for the choice of packaging shape (reels, square-bottom bags or doypacks) and ecological and recyclable materials, because we are specialists in flexo printing on 100% Eco paper”.
“We have developed the company with major investments in Industry 4.0,” says Edoardo, but he continues, “in the packaging production phase, our highly qualified personnel is the primary resource.
What are the production steps?
The most complicated part “occurs when we have to set the parameters for a new project but, thanks to our technical department and the know-how of our sales team, we are now able to really make any type of paper packaging: please note that we have been dealing with paper for 33 years, so for us paper packaging is not the temporary novelty to be followed in an ecological point of view, but it stands like a must and we know everything about it!”
“Once it has been defined how the packaging should be designed, its shape and the materials to be used, the packaging production steps are actually quite simple”.
Production of special packaging
According to us, it is essential the relationship with the customer and the evaluation with him of the best way to package his product and “dress” the packaging with the most effective and attractive artwork.
If he has to supply his private label product to the large-scale retail trade (GDO), we will be able to respond with our packaging to the characteristics required by the GDO chains.
“In our continuous research for product innovation and in order to meet the many customer demands, we have also created 100% paper bags, perfectly sealed.
The novelty of this second half of the year is the packaging for frozen food. Our studies and researches have also enabled us to replace aluminum with paper for the lids of cups containing yoghurt or similar liquid foods. Ours is not a job, ours is a mission, a small contribution to save the planet”.
The sensitivity for green items is increasing at all levels, even in pet food, where we are already offering the right solutions, and our little friends thank us!”
