Stick Pack Machine

Stick packing is a vertical form fill seal (VFFS) process. A single reel of film is unwound, split into as many ribbons as the machine has lanes, and drawn over forming tubes that shape each ribbon into a continuous sleeve. A vertical seal closes the length of the sleeve; the doser drops a measured shot of product into it, and a horizontal sealing bar closes the top of one stick and the bottom of the next before a blade separates them.

Every machine in the range is built around an industrial PC with touch-screen control and servo-driven motion, so settings are stored per product and recall is a menu selection rather than a manual reset.

Six models cover the range from low-volume production up to continuous high-output lines. All of them run on 220, 400 or 440 V AC three-phase supply at 50 or 60 Hz and need compressed air at 6 bar.

The PH models are the enclosed-cabinet versions, built to suit pharmaceutical and nutraceutical production where the film path needs protecting from the surrounding environment and documentation requirements are stricter.

Lane count is the main lever on output. Every extra lane divides the same reel into narrower ribbons. An SP12 running six lanes will give you a 90mm stick; the same machine at twenty lanes gives you 17mm and three times the throughput.

The ILPRA UK team will work with you to decide the dose, the stick width your product and branding need, and the fill weight, then work backwards to the lane count that delivers your target volume. If your figures land between two models it is usually worth taking the larger frame with fewer lanes fitted.

Stick length runs from 60mm up to 160mm as standard, with 200mm available where the application calls for it.

Beyond a plain straight cut, sticks can be produced with laser scoring, rounded corners, a diamond profile, vertical, inclined or V-shaped tear notches, and fully custom shapes. Twin-pack configurations let you run two products side by side in a joined pair, and child-resistant formats are available where the contents require them.

Coding is integrated into the machine rather than bolted on afterwards, with laser, inkjet and thermal transfer overprinting all supported, so batch and date marking happens in line at full speed.

A stick pack line consumes considerably more film than most other packaging formats. Film becomes the running cost that decides whether the line is profitable, and a machine that has been specified without reference to the film it will run is a machine that will give you sealing problems.

We supply both. Stick pack film is available from us from the day the machine is commissioned, in structures matched to your product’s barrier and shelf-life requirements, including paper-based, multilayer, aluminium-barrier and recyclable options. Because we specify the machine and the material together, seal integrity and machinability are settled before installation rather than diagnosed afterwards.

Most projects start with the machine and its dedicated product loading system, which is what governs whether the doser is fed consistently enough to hold fill accuracy at speed. That is the minimum viable line and it is where the majority of installations begin.

From there the line can grow. Transfer systems move finished sticks away from the outfeed, in-line checkweighing and vision inspection handle quality control, and end of line packaging equipment collates sticks into retail packs. None of it has to be bought at once. The machines are designed to integrate with secondary packaging equipment, so cartoning and automation can be added later without replacing what is already installed.

Machines are installed and commissioned by our engineers in Swindon, with operator and maintenance training delivered on site as part of the handover. Servicing and maintenance, breakdown callouts and spare parts are handled from the UK, so a fault does not mean waiting on a European service visit. We cover the wider picture in our guide to reducing downtime on automated lines.