STAND UP POUCHES

Food manufacturers are increasingly turning to stand up pouches (SUPs) as an attractive packaging solution. SUPs are also used to package, to a lesser extent, pet food as well as cleaning and beauty products.

Every year stand up pouches penetrate new niches in the Brazilian consumer goods market, demonstrating impressive growth despite still amounting to relatively small volumes compared to mature markets such as Chile or the United States.

Some of the obstacles the packaging format faces in Brazil are the lack of purchase in scale of important inputs such as re-sealable zippers and nylon, which have maintained the price of SUPs at a relatively high level.

There are two filling processes for stand up pouches: form-fill seal (FFS) and fill-seal (FS).

FFS: fed by printed rolls, extensive machines erect the pouch, fill it with product and seal it in a continuous cycle. This requires a large initial investment that is compensated by relatively low operational costs. This process is recommended for larger runs.

FS: Machines fill and seal pre-formed pouches separately. The FS process is more versatile than FSS, reducing downtime for maintanence.