Manufacturers of traditional confectionery products count on the best handcrafted quality. They also have to ensure high production volumes. Asolo Dolce turned to a new packaging line from Schubert for this special challenge. The robot- assisted TLM line packs Cantuccini and Amaretti quickly and flexibly.

For over 40 years, the traditional manufacturer Asolo Dolce from northern Italy has been producing the double-baked Cantuccini biscuits, as well as Amaretti and other confectionery products. Until recently, however, the treats were packaged in pre-glued cartons – an expensive and labour-intensive process that Asolo Dolce wanted to optimize due to increasing demand.

The owner-managed company turned to the packaging specialist Schubert for the efficient modernization of its packaging and process, since the required bag-in-box packaging combination can be processed extremely efficiently and flexibly by modular robot-assisted TLM systems. Schubert designed a new packaging machine with which the pre-filled flowpacks of various sizes are packed into a less expensive and more machine-compatible version of the cartons from flat banks.

Another challenge for the automated handling was that after the first baking of a dough blank, Cantuccini are sliced into small pieces that are then baked a second time. The irregular shape of the biscuits gives each filled bag its own geometry. Therefore, the design of the previously cost-intensive pre-glued cartons was developed from scratch by Schubert Packaging Development. The Schubert team designed two carton formats as flat blanks and with two different heights, in order to fill the cartons flexibly with bags weighing 150, 200 or 250 g – all on a single machine.

To save Asolo Dolce time and money over the long term, the Schubert machine experts also opted for the top-loading process. Although bag-in-box solutions traditionally use side-loading, the advantages of top-loading are evident: with this solution, the cartons are filled robotically via the largest possible opening. Thus, the system not only works more quickly, but also more flexibly and reliably, since the robots can act independently of the height of the cartons.

The new packaging machine is responsible for automatic bag grouping, erecting, and gluing the flat blanks, filling the cartons with Cantuccini flowpacks and then closing the filled cartons. The full output of 75 cartons per minute is always ensured, regardless of the format. In the future, further formats shall be possible with the new packaging machine.