Development of Packaging Machines

Current Status of the Machinery Industry Development

China's vacuum packaging machine industry has only been established for 20 years, with a relatively weak foundation and insufficient technology and research capabilities. Its development is relatively lagging, which to some extent has held back the food and packaging industries. It is predicted that by 2010, the total domestic industry output value could reach 130 billion yuan (current price), while market demand may reach 200 billion yuan. How to quickly catch up and seize this huge market is an urgent problem we need to solve.

Current Status of China's Vacuum Packaging Machine Industry Development

China's vacuum packaging machine industry started in the late 1970s, with an annual output value of only 70 to 80 million yuan and more than 100 product varieties. The total sales increased from 15 billion yuan in 1994 to 30 billion yuan in 2000, and the product varieties grew from 270 in 1994 to 3,700 in 2000.

Product quality has reached a new level, with trends toward scale, complete sets, and automation emerging. Equipment with complex transmission and high technical content has begun to appear. It can be said that China's machinery production has met basic domestic demand and started exporting to Southeast Asia and the Third World. For example, China's total import and export value in 2000 was 2.737 billion USD.

Among this, exports amounted to 1.29 billion USD, an increase of 22.2% compared to 1999. Among the exported machinery types, food processing machines (dairy, pastries, meat, fruit), ovens, sealing, labeling machines, and paper-plastic-aluminum composite can production equipment were exported more frequently. Food machinery such as sugar making, brewing, beverage, and vacuum packaging equipment has begun to be exported as complete sets.

Development Status

Regarding food sales packaging, the commonly used and basic packaging processes today fall into two main categories: filling and wrapping. Filling methods are almost applicable to all materials and various packaging containers. Specifically, for liquids, powders, and granular materials with good flowability, packaging is mainly completed relying on their own gravity, supplemented by certain mechanical actions if necessary. For viscous semi-fluids or larger single or combined items,

corresponding forced measures such as extrusion, pushing in, and picking up are required. As for wrapping methods, they differ; they are mainly suitable for single or combined items with regular shapes, sufficient rigidity and firmness, and require tight packaging. Flexible plastics and their composites (sometimes with lightweight trays or liners) are mostly used, with mechanical action assisting the wrapping.

In the past decade or so, the international packaging industry has attached great importance to improving the versatility and multifunctional integration capabilities of packaging machinery and entire packaging systems, providing timely and flexible production means for the rapidly diversifying market. At the same time, based on the practical needs of reasonable packaging simplification and advantageous packaging processes, continuous exploration has been carried out,

significantly accelerating the pace of technological innovation. Especially in response to the synchronous development of modern automatic machine tools, it has gradually become clear that to establish a new system of diversified, universal, and multifunctional integrated packaging machinery, the major issues of modularization and mechatronics must be focused on first. Undoubtedly, this is an important future development direction.

Mechanical packaging replacing manual packaging has greatly improved packaging efficiency, but packaging overuse has also become a bad habit. In the future, not only packaging but also packaging machinery will move towards environmental protection. Green and eco-friendly development is the main theme of the future.

Development of the Packaging Machinery Industry

China's packaging machinery started relatively late, beginning in the 1970s. After studying Japanese packaging machinery, the Beijing Commercial Machinery Research Institute completed the manufacture of China's first packaging machine. After more than 20 years of development, China's packaging machinery has become one of the top ten industries in the machinery sector, providing strong support for the rapid development of China's packaging industry. Some packaging machinery has filled domestic gaps and can basically meet domestic market demand, with some products also exported. China's packaging machinery import value is roughly equivalent to its total output value, far behind developed countries.

While the industry is developing rapidly, a series of problems also exist. Currently, the level of China's packaging machinery industry is not high enough. The packaging machinery market is becoming increasingly monopolized. Except for corrugated paper packaging machinery and some small packaging machines which have certain scale and advantages, other packaging machinery is almost not systematic or scaled. Especially some complete packaging production lines with large market demand, such as liquid filling production lines, beverage packaging container complete equipment, and aseptic packaging production lines, are monopolized by several large packaging machinery enterprise groups in the global packaging machinery market. Domestic enterprises should take active measures to face the strong impact of foreign brands.

From the current situation, global packaging machinery demand grows at an annual rate of 5.3%. The United States has large packaging equipment manufacturers, followed by Japan. Other major producers include Germany, Italy, and China. However, the fastest growth in packaging equipment production in the future will be in developing countries and regions.

Developed countries will profit from domestic demand and seek suitable local manufacturers in developing countries, especially investing in food processing plants to provide packaging machinery equipment. Since China joined the WTO, it has made great progress. China's packaging machinery level has improved rapidly, and the gap with the world level is gradually narrowing. With China's increasing openness, China's packaging machinery will further open up the international market.