The company last year launched a Ceres machine to apply health warnings on cigarette packs in compliance with European legislation, and has used this experience to upgrade its Sig DSN to apply hot-melt glue while dealing with speed changes from 0 to 4,000 mm a second.
700 dots a second, producing 165 bars a minute
The machine has already been installed by a chocolate manufacturer in Switzerland with a glue head that can handle 165 bars a minute.
Lareka director and owner Henk Somers told ConfectioneryNews that, while the roots of the business are in the tobacco industry, it can take its expertise and transfer it to confectionery - and vice versa.
“The Sig DSN is one example where we are using this knowledge within the industry because it is very hard to apply glue accurately onto cardboard packaging,” he said.
“The idea of the Ceres was based on our wrapping machine for Napolitain chocolates NP350sr which can stick 500 tax stickers per minute, each with eight glue dots. That’s 4,000 glue dots a minute.
Somers described the Sig DSN as "like a high-speed train, but for gluing".
“It beats the competition because our machines are much more accurate and there is less pollution of glue in the machine," he said. "It can be customized to different types of chocolate bars.”
DST generation of technology
Somers added that Lareka’s business is building and rebuilding second-hand machines, and that it is currently upgrading its DST generation of technology.
“They are similar machines from a different generation where we can add all kinds of features that was not available on current technology,” he said.
“With this technique, a new generation of creative packaging materials can be processed. The glue reaches the right position and this offers opportunities to make the packaging resealable, for example. Our system can be integrated into any Sig, Sapal or Loesch machine.
Lareka is now looking for companies to trial its high-speed machines for wrapping chocolate bars, and is also exploring the idea of integrating an aluminum embossing unit on a packaging machine.
“It’s my dream to have the embossing of aluminum foil on a packaging machine, which is common in the cigarette industry but not so much in the chocolate arena,” added Somers.
“It would be interesting to implement a customized embossing unit on a packaging machine so our customers can produce their products more easily. There are some premium chocolate bar manufacturers such as Lindt and Mondelēz International, who use embossed aluminum foil but buy it from an aluminum supplier.”