Lately I have had quite few people ask the question. “We are bagging 20 to 40kg bags should we go open mouth bags or form fill & seal machine.”

So I thought I would let you know my thoughts. There are pros & cons to each, so it depends greatly on your product, speed required & your market. Please keep in mind we can supply all the types below so I am aiming to be informative & unbiased.

FFS. Form, fill & seal are excellent if you have the same product running through continually & you are looking for high speed. Also the film cost is lower than a pre – made bag. The down side is, change of the film is time consuming so if you are changing products regularly this is probably not your best option. Also some products can sweat in the bag & cause mold & other issues. Also if you are looking to change over from woven poly, paper, ect  do some market research, some of your customers may not except the change. If a FFS bag is dropped, commonly it will split at the weakest point, down the back seam. Hence the next machine on the list.

TFFS. Tubular, form, fill & seal.  This has the same up sides & down sides as the standard FFS but instead of the film being a flat sheet it is supplied in a tube form, like a sausage. The bag now has no back seam  to split. The down side here is the machine is much more expensive.

Pre – made bags. The big advantage with pre – made, open mouth bags is the flexibility. You can do woven polypropylene and paper bags or wheel in a heat sealer & do P.E. bags. You can load the bag clamp manually or have a automatic system. Changing to different bags can be done in seconds. With a manual system you have the cost of an operator but the setup cost is much cheaper. The automatic system is similar to a standard FFS. You also have the option to be able to seal an inner liner & stitch the outer bag if required. you can plain stitch, do a fold over or crepe tape. A poly woven bag is much more robust than an FFS bag. The down side is the cost per bag is higher & the speed won’t be as high.

Below I have a 1 minute 18 second  video of the automatic open mouth bagging machine that may be of interest.
Don’t forget to turn on the sound!

No matter how basic or automated your bagging requirements are, I would be pleased to have a chat about your options.