Trace every food pouch and carton from film reel lot to pallet label.

A food packaging plant converts rolls of BOPP, PET and aluminium foil into stand-up pouches, flow wrappers, folding cartons and peelable lidding. Brand owners fill them with crisps, yoghurt, biscuits and ready meals. Packaging is cheap to ship empty. It is costly to get wrong once food is inside, because a weak heat seal or a wrong barcode turns a full pallet into a recall at someone else’s filling line.

Software for food packaging converters keeps the film structure, the approved artwork and the lot numbers on one job record. Estimating, the gravure press, the laminator, the pouch machines and the quality desk all read it. Customers ask who made a pack and from which reel. The answer comes from the record. Nobody guesses.

A brand owner sends an artwork file, a pack size and a structure such as PET over metallised film over polyethylene. Estimating prices the film by weight and square metre and adds cylinder or plate cost for print. It also asks each film and ink supplier for a food-contact declaration. Artwork travels back and forth as proofs until the customer signs one version. Only that one is made.

On the floor the press runs the job in colours matched to a Pantone reference. The laminator joins the layers with adhesive that needs a cure period before slitting. Pouch machines form side seals and bottom gussets. Then the checks begin. Operators test seal strength, print registration and residual solvent odour at set intervals and weigh each carton of finished pouches. Every reel and ink lot used goes against the order.

Dispatch packs by pallet with a label for job, lot and count. A certificate of conformity travels with the delivery note when the customer asks for one.