Rich’s Ice Cream Heat Seal Success Story
Inconsistent tooling life and the need for Teflon tape created a desire to find a better heat seal solution.
SummaryFounded in 1946, West Palm Beach, Florida-based Rich’s Ice Cream Company is a nationwide purveyor of delicious and nutritious dairy and juice-based frozen treats. Like many food products, these treats are often individually packaged to retain freshness. Developing a secure, repeatable seal is key to delivering a satisfactory treat to Rich’s customers.
Challenges / Objectives
Achieving a quality, repeatable heat seal is a non-trivial challenge that is often faced by food manufacturers and packagers. Packaging machine builders often rely on metal-on-metal seal bars and seal heads to accomplish these seals, whether it is a complete weld or a peelable seal. An example of a product that uses a welded heat seal would be an individual pop-sickle or éclair. However, ice cream tubs and individual servings of ice cream typically utilize a peelable lid where a rigid container and a film are sealed together, allowing the film to be removed without tearing.
For Jack Niemiec, VP of Engineering & Refrigeration, his heat seal tooling utilized a metal-backed rubber plate. These plates had inconsistent lifespans, ranging from 4 days to 2 weeks, causing unexpected downtime within production, and ever-rising tooling costs. One approach to extend the life of these seal bars was to apply Teflon tape. Additional changes were made to compensate for degrading seal performance including seal time, temperature, and pressure. Neither approach addressed the core issue which was tooling lifespan.
SolutionJack searched for an alternative to his rubber-backed metal plates. Luckily, ISM’s silicone rubber sheets caught his attention. This thermally conductive material utilizes a propriety silicone blend that is chemically bonded to a metal base, in this case aluminum. ISM worked with Jack to develop a custom solution by molding silicone to Jack’s existing base. This new tooling was now ready for testing as a direct replacement.
"ISM worked closely with us to help solve our problem with the heat plate, which is part of the tray sealer. The engineers at ISM took the time to speak with us and share knowledge from what they had seen in the different industries with similar sealed packaged food." - Jack
Initial tests had the same result, a less than desirable tooling lifespan. The heat seal itself was successful, yet the core issue remained. In response, ISM developed another prototype utilizing a thicker aluminum base and silicone layer. Optimization within the sealing process was needed as well. By adjusting time, temperature, and pressure, Jack was able to find the new parameters needed to create a satisfactory seal.
“We discussed every aspect of heat-sealing process in depth, one at a time (plate material and thickness, rubber vs silicone, temperature ranges, pressure ranges, time of the sealing process ranges, speed and many more). By doing this we made modifications to our process such as reducing time delay of pressure, temperature, and overall pressure. We also completely removed an extra layer of Teflon fabric from the heat plate.” - Jack
ResultsThe more robust heat seal plate, with its thicker base, thermally conductive silicone, and improved operating parameters, delivers a longer and more consistent lifespan, reducing unexpected downtime.
"We are now able to run at reduced pressure (about 60 psi lower) and reduced temperature (about 70F lower). The package seal is great and life span of the heating plate has increased by 300 to 600%."
Thank you, ISM, for your support, patience, ability to listen to your customer, making all your resources available to us, making cost of R&D fair and most important a promise that you will find a solution to our problem and delivering. It was a pleasure working with you guys. I wish more companies had this approach to the customer.” - Jack
ISM’s thermally conductive silicone offers an innovative approach for your heat seal applications. This non-rigid material conforms to inconsistencies in packaging materials, providing optimal seal quality. Available in standard sheets or custom molded to meet your needs, the ISM team is here to support you. Share your application with us today.
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