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Wrapping equipment plays a critical role in packaging everything from snacks to electronics. In this Package This episode, learn the four main types of wrapping machines—flow wrappers, shrink wrappers, overwrappers, and twist wrappers—and how each one works to seal, protect, and enhance products. Whether you are packaging single candies, large cartons, or consumer goods with sharp edges, there is a wrapping machine for you. Watch now to see real-world examples and discover why smart wrapping matters for your packaging line!
See more from Eastey here
Welcome to Package This — your guide to packaging machinery and materials. Today’s episode is dedicated to the four main types of wrapping equipment:
While each type is a distinct technology, all of them take a flexible packaging material — most often film but also foil or paper — and envelop it around a product.
Shrink wrappers
Shrink wrappers are another type of packaging equipment that use heat-shrinkable film to enclose products. These machines can handle a wide range of product sizes, including items with irregular shapes or sharp edges.
Here we see Eastey’s VSA1825 Automatic L-Sealer. With an 18-by-25-inch seal area, it can accommodate packages up to 7 inches tall. Its PTFE hot knife seal bar, combined with a vertical cutting motion, delivers clean, consistent seals across most polyolefin and polyethylene shrink films.
Eastey’s efficient automatic sealing system enables throughput of approximately 35 to 40 products per minute, depending on product size and application requirements.
Flow Wrappers
Let’s look at flow wrappers. These machines package individual products such as candy bars and frozen pizzas by forming a continuous tube of film around the item, sealing it, and cutting it into finished packs.
Flow wrapping systems are designed for versatility in handling a wide range of product types and can integrate with various infeed and loading configurations.
Hygienic design is also critical in many applications, with features like stainless steel construction and washdown capability.
Overwrappers
Overwrappers are machines that are typically designed to package flat, straight-edged products such as cartons or flat boxes. Overwrapping equipment is often used to provide an additional layer of protection to a primary package, such as wrapping clear plastic film over a small carton containing a perfume bottle or overwrapping a carton of tea with cellophane.
The overwrapping process starts by pushing the product through heat-sealable film that is cut from a larger roll. The film is then tucked and folded around the product before heated plates seal the film with a tight crease, giving the package an appearance that is reminiscent of gift wrapping.
Twist wrappers
Last but not least is a specialty type of wrapping machine: twist wrappers. Also known as bunch wrappers, these machines are widely used in the confectionery industry to package small, individual units such as hard candies and bonbons. In a typical twist wrapping application, the product is fed and staged in line for wrapping.
At the same time, the machine unwinds the film rollstock to get the precise amount of film needed to wrap the product, cuts the film to size, and pushes the piece to be wrapped into place around the film. Then the rotary grippers grab the two ends to quickly fold and twist film around the product, forming the double twist wrap.
And that’s a wrap! We hope you enjoyed this overview of the most common types of wrapping equipment used in packaging! Before you go, please like and share this video with your colleagues on LinkedIn! Join us for more videos on packaging machinery and materials by subscribing to our full Package This series on YouTube.
And if you’re in the market for new wrapping equipment or any other machines or packaging materials, be sure to check out PMMI ProSource, North America’s most complete packaging and processing directory with over 1,000 of the top suppliers.
Thanks for watching and until our next video, keep on packaging!
