ME Shrinkwrap features a range of shrink wrapping machines that include manual chamber machines to fully automatic sleeve-wrappers.  

Package Machinery Company, Inc. has sold its Intellectual Property and Assets to Marden Edwards Limited (United Kingdom) who are now in the process of transferring and integrating the Intellectual Property and Assets into its Business. You can contact Marden Edwards Inc. (USA) using the following:   For new machine enquiries usmachines@mardenedwards.com   For new parts enquiries usparts@mardenedwards.com […]

Bundling Configurations There are multiple ways to bundle product  but two basic ones.  They involve creating the bundle in line, like soldiers or in layers side by side. Creating the Bundle In the first one the boxes are lined up like soldiers.  Since the most preferred method is to put the tuck and fold on […]

Packaging Waste Packaging waste is a big topic these days. Solid waste landfills are overflowing. Some states and municipalities are now requiring restaurants to compost food waste. As of January 2015, Fed Ex and UPS are charging not simply by weight but for volume.  The shipper  has to provide the dimensions of the package and is […]

At a Customer Site Recently I visited with a customer who has one of our FA-ST servo overwrapping machines as well as an old FA overwrapping machine. The newer FA-ST had replaced two old FA overwrappers running at 40 per minute.  When this customer bought the overwrapping machine we promised them 70 per minute with 100 gauge […]

Huge Growth in Candy and Food Entrepreneurs There seems to be a explosion of candy and food entrepreneurs.  And it makes sense.  Not only are many consumers looking to buy more locally, they want higher quality ingredients. Major food companies are buying up successful food entrepreneurs. So a food entrepreneur can exploit his or her […]

Set Up to Fail a Factory Acceptance Test We recently had a challenging factory acceptance test. The  product was not yet on the market so the boxes were not filled to the right levels with the real product. The cartons we had to wrap were made by hand and therefore not consistently folded. They had […]

Changing the Packaging Process It is wonderful to see our customers embracing waste reduction. When they call us, it is to talk about changing the packaging process to reduce their materials consumption. Two blogs crossed my computer today and they both relate to this indirectly.   The first – Why Going Lean is the New […]

How important is registered  or printed film to your branding? If it is important, how accurate is the positioning of your printed film?   Film positioning is critically important when working with printed film. It is how the manufacturer gets to communicate with the customer about the product they are buying. All the areas of […]

Everyone is on the bandwagon about minimizing packaging materials.  And there is significant opportunity to do that with bundling. I read an article recently that discussed product and packaging shipability.  I always think about the issue from the packaging perspective but this pointed out that an investment in the product sometimes pays off in improved […]

Flexibility to change speed or product size are the most common considerations but ability to change material should also be a consideration in purchasing a wrapping machine. When we are approached about buying a wrapping machine, often an inquiry regarding material for wrapping follows on its heels. Over the lifetime of one of our wrappers, far […]

I was reading an article on Clay Christensen’s MilkShake Marketing and applying it to what we do at Package Machinery.   It made me realize that Bundling is a job to be done by many of our customers and what we provide is a means to help them do it with our bundle wrappers. It […]

Wrapping is about branding and product protection. There are many ways to do branding and product protection and we get inquiries all the time for wrapping machines for a variety of applications. We like to think we are wrapping experts, but we also know our limitations.  So here is our little guide to what we […]

Once you know you need to wrap a product, you need to decide how to wrap the product. You need to weigh the appearance, product protection and costs of your options. In all cases we are talking about consumer products needing to be wrapped for one reason or another. Factors to consider: Appearance: What does […]

Sometimes it helps to think about why products are wrapped in the first place. In a dynamic packaging market, this is a useful first step toward sustainability and cost reduction. Whether we are talking bananas, which come with their own built in wrapping, or a delicate piece of glass, products are wrapped for a very […]

In 2014 sustainability in packaging will make serious progress. 2014 should be a fascinating year for sharing best practices in packaging with our customers and for seeing our customers share internally and externally themselves. What do  I mean by that?  Beyond simple changes in process,  I see much greater sharing of knowledge leading to improved sustainability […]

What is Packaging Sustainability? One thing I have learned is that packaging sustainability is not simply about making the earth greener. No company looks at sustainability without internal motivations to strengthen their brand, increase their profits and improve their market position. Usually those motivations relate to savings or branding. Let’s face it: packaging is a […]

I find the process of creating a new wrapping machine fascinating, perhaps even more because I am not an engineer. From there I wonder about how the packaging is created from a brand owner’s viewpoint. A lot of thought goes into the package appearance on the shelf, the tensile strength of the packaging materials to […]

The four components to make the wrapping process work are the wrapping machine the product the wrapping material the operator and mechanics Seems pretty simple doesn’t it? But most people forget the impact of changing just one component on the whole process. No question but our FA-ST servo overwrappers are complex machine with lots of […]

There are times when it helps to think about how we live our lives and why we do what we do. By my calculations I have lived over 35 years within 1.5 miles of the Connecticut River. I had been on it once as a child, when I was not allowed by my mother to […]

Over the past few years we have built overwrappers for both cake and bread. Wrapping cake, bread or other baked goods present their own unique challenges. What sets this overwrap process apart from a standard overwrapper is the demands of the product for a less than tight wrap.  Both cake and bread are fragile and […]

Teaching a wrapping machine involves hands on learning. It is also a two-way street. While our customer’s staff need to learn the ins and outs of our overwrapper, we need to make sure that we understand their product and how it behaves while being wrapped. There are four component to a successful transition: a machine […]

What is Packaging Waste? Packaging waste is unnecessary packaging that does not provide protection, integrity and security to products from the manufacturer to the consumer. I was just reading about food waste is approximately 30% of total food.  This is scary in a world of growing population and shrinking agricultural lands with a little global […]

The mantra for packaging waste is reduce, reuse and recycle. The EPA on its web site has the following statements. “In most parts of the developed world, packaging constitutes as much as one-third of the non-industrial solid waste stream. As the developing world races to raise living standards, more countries are seeing significant growth in […]

If you are buying a wrapping machine, you are worrying about delivery time the same way you worry about delivering your product on time. One impacts the other. I was recently discussing a food customer who has high seasonal variability. Their solution is to hire unskilled  temporary workers to operate their machines and use trained […]

We have seen significant interest for overwrapping machines to wrap boxes of frozen vegetables over the past 18 months.  I was puzzled as to why that might be, so I did a little homework. According to Gene Lester, a plant physiologist at the USDA, quoted in Eating Well magazine, “Fruits and vegetables chosen for freezing […]

There has been a significant increase in demand for bundle wrapping. Half our our machine volume in the past year has been bundle wrappers, so it seems bundle wrappers are useful all of a sudden. This is because bundle wrappers improve corporate social responsibility and corporations care more and more about that. The reason for […]

The recent heat and humidity make me think about the weather’s effect on wrapping material. What our customers spend on wrapping material far exceeds what they spend to buy an overwapping machine but gets far less attention. So I wanted to focus on the care of the wrapping material briefly. Dry air creates static which […]

How many ways can you wrap candy? Here are various ways to wrap candy through basic automation. twist wrap – the oldest way, and it is still being done especially for saltwater taffy diefold wrap – like some Reese’s peanut butter cups or caramels tuck and fold wrap with paper sleeve – high end chocolate bars […]

Most people are surprised to know that cellophane is not commonly used, even for wrap styles called cello wrap. Cellophane has a century-long history. It comes from the words cellulose and diaphane (meaning transparent) and is a trademarked name of Innovia Films in some countries, although not in the United States. Cellophane was the original […]

When it comes to wrapping machines, there are lots of opportunities to be confused about what makes an overwrap machine more cost effective and therefore more sustainable than a shrink wrapper or flowwrapper. In this day and age of reduce, reuse and recycle, it is hard to know which factor is more important and which […]

As you know, we recently moved to Holyoke Massachusetts, one of the first planned cities in the United States and one that still gets most of its electricity from renewable sources. We are still completing the renovations of our new old building to meet our needs but work on our customers’ machine is our highest […]

From our first FA overwrapper in 1933 to our current line of servo over wrappers, the potential for upgrading the wrapping machine as your needs change has always existed. Having introduced the first servo overwrapper in 2001, Package is now using third and fourth generation controls for its servo wrappers. While controls may become dated […]

Not only do over 47% of the visits to our website come from outside the United States, but orders for wrapping machinery are following.  I wish I thought most of the visitors were truly likely to be buyers. i know that we are providing lots of valuable information to people who may never buy from […]

We agonize over the design concepts of overwrapping machines and the detailing that goes on in engineering, but the real issues often show up late in the assembly process: fine tuning the wrapping machine for the specific product and wrapping material. Sometimes it is a shim or an adjustment that is mechanical in origin. Sometimes […]

Consumer product packaging trends show increasing pushback on packaging. Whenever I say we make wrapping machinery for consumer products, I get immediate feedback from frustrated consumers.  Usually they launch into packaging they hate such as clamshells, but sometimes they extend it to all packaging as a complete waste designed to frustrate consumers, create waste and […]

Recently USA Today ran an article entitled Made in USA Makes Comeback as Marketing Tool. This made me think about how that applies to our wrapping machinery. We offer the following five reasons as guidelines for why you should consider Package Machinery’s overwrappers. Our wrapping machinery dates back to the early 1900’s. In fact, when […]

Usually we are providing an overwrapper for the end of the primary packaging line. Recently we were asked to provide an overwrapper for both end of the primary packaging line but also to replace the intermediate box that is used at the start of  secondary packaging. Primary packaging is defined as that which the customer […]

See Package Machinery’s overwrapping, flow wrapping, and diefold wrapping machinery at Pack Expo Chicago October 28-31,2012.

Choosing wrapping material is as important as your choice of wrapping machine.