1. AUTOMATION
44 Packaging South Asia 2 / February 2014
Sandip Sen
T
he packaging industry is no longer limited to box making or pouching by the
small entrepreneur. Increasingly scalable, automated, with sophisticated
control systems and the high-speed convergence of materials and sub-
strates, it produces shelf ready end products for the consumer. Apart from global
brands, Indian brands are growing with support by investors like Sequoia Capi-
tal, Catamaran Investment and Footprint Ventures who are pouring millions of dol-
lars into the Indian entrepreneur-driven packaging business.
Packaging South Asia visited Haldiram’s Gurgaon plant to talk to its general man-
ager technical, Shivraj Chaudhary, on the automation used for packing 20 metric
tonnes of moong dal and another 20 MT of bhujia each day. The packing is done by
twenty-three packaging machines, sixteen 3-side sealing machines for small
pouches and a special purpose high-speed machine for medium-sized 400 gram
pouches produced for Haldiram by Uflex. In addition there are a pair of VFFS ma-
chineseachfromIshida,Kawashima,andMicoandasinglemachinefromYamada.
zSmall pouches form the bulk
Chaudhary explained that Haldiram has seven factories in north India and five in
Nagpur, run independently by the two Agarwal brothers who sell snacks under the
brand name Haldiram. The third brother sells under the brand name Bikaji from
Bikaner Rajasthan. Three years ago, the organized salted snacks market, as per
Nielsen data, was dominated by western snacks such as potato chips and finger
sticks accounting for two thirds of the market – mainly by Pepsico’s Frito Lays and
ITC foods.
Todaynearly60%ofthefast-growing`12,000croreplusmarketisdominatedbyIn-
dian snacks produced by a dozen local players apart from Pepsico’s Indian snacks
wing Lehar Foods. “While Frito Lays producing western snacks is still the biggest
market player having an installed capacity of 3,000 MT a day of salted snacks, Pep-
sico’s Lehar is fast catching up with a production capability of 1,500 MT a day fol-
lowed by Balaji at 1,000 MT a day and Haldiram at 500 MT a day,” says Chaudhary.
The unorganized salted snacks market is several times bigger and accelerated its
conversion to the organized sector when small retailers such as ‘pan’ and ‘kirana’
shops started selling `10 and `5 pouches. Indian companies like Balaji, Haldiram,
Bikaji, Bikanervala and Prataap Snacks (which received US$ 30 million investor
funds last year) packed their snacks in inexpensive indigenous VFFS machines. In
addition, many small fringe players entered the snack segment especially after the
ban of ‘gutka’ and ‘tambakoo’ in several states. Chaudhary added that 60% of
Haldiram’spresentproductionconsistsof18and36gramsizedpouchespricedat`
5 and 10 respectively. Almost 20% of the company’s volumes are from 200 gram
zIndian snacks rev up the marketplace
Automation and high-speed
packaging gain traction

2. AUTOMATION
46 Packaging South Asia 2 / February 2014
The industrial Ethernet market is an open source tech-
nology platform that offers a cost effective and flexible
network structure, that is user friendly, functional and safe
without any licensing fees or access limitations for third
party users. Of all available real-time Ethernet systems, IEC
compatible Powerlink has been the longest in the market
operating over 200,000 machines worldwide in over half a
dozen industry verticals including packaging.
It accepts any topology – star, ring, delta or line, all cabling
such as copper, fibre optic or even wireless, all modular ma-
chine structures, quick component integration and easy in-
terlinkingbesidesthirdpartyinterfacing.Itisintegratedwith
open-safety technology, also certified to IEC standards. An
open source software with no dependence on proprietary
hardware, software or networking, Powerlink supports both
centralized and decentralized architectures capable of both
local and remote control.
B&R Automation supports several large industrial clients
using Ethernet in the packaging segment including Krones,
SIG, Theegarten Pactec, Oystar, Sidel, Beretta, B&B and
Koch and press manufacturers like Heidelberg, manroland,
KBA, MBO and Nilpeter. With a large footprint in plastics,
metal cutting, high-tech textile manufacturing, and in semi-
conductors, B&R conducts training courses for industry pro-
fessionalstoabsorbandadoptthetechnologyplatformofthe
ethernet bus at its Pune head office in India and around the
country.
– Sandip Sen
B&R hooks in with Powerlink and Opensafety
zStandardized industrial Ethernet bus
pouches, 15% from 400 gram pouches,
and 5% from 1 kilogram pouches.
zAutomation helps high
productivity
Automation starts with the frying and
the bucket conveyors which are part of
the material handling system. The
bucketconveyoratopthehoppertiltsto
drop the moong dal or bhujia into the
stainless steel hopper after it receives a
signalfromalevelswitchonthehopper
that activates the grab bucket. While
the frying system and product move-
mentautomationatHaldiramisprovid-
ed by Allen Bradley, the packaging ma-
chine automation for the Uflex FFS ma-
chinesislargelyfromB&RAutomation.
There are also some packaging ma-
chines with Allen Bradley automation
2% Banana chips,
Lachha
30%
Potato wafers
17%
Mix chivra, chanachur
16% Gathia, papri
12% Sev bhujia
11%
Extruded snacks
7% Dal
5%
N
uts
`12,000 crore Indian and Western salty snacks organ-
ized retail market. Source: Industry data
Industrial Ethernet for packaging automation and control

3. AUTOMATION
2 / February 2014 Packaging South Asia
while Mitsubishi provides automation for the Ishida and Siemens for the Mico FFS
machines.
The hopper thereafter empties into the cup filler that is filled to the brim before it
rotatestoapositionoverthebaganddropsthemoongdalintothepouch.Theentire
process is synchronized with the help of level switches, timers, photo switches and
encoders on the disc shaft so that the signals to the feeding servo, the film pulling
servo and the sealing servos match. This ensures smooth and continuous opera-
tion of pouch forming, material filling and pouch sealing resulting in automatic
high speed operation at the packing end.
AutomationhelpshighproductivityandseamlessoperationandHaldiramisnow
thinking of using a common protocol to ensure that all automation can be moni-
toredcentrallyandrespondstoauniformcommandcontroller.TheB&Rteamatthe
plant confirmed that they have a solution for both centralized as well as decentral-
ized operation of automated packaging machines from diverse sources. (See box
item in the previous page.)
zMajor expansion in the offering
The salted snacks packaging market is growing at a phenomenal 15 to 20% annu-
ally – especially at the entry level. “The material cost for a `5 pouch works out to
around 60 paise which makes even packaging of small pouches viable as the de-
mandinthatsegmentisreallyhigh,”saysChaudhury.TheGurgaonunitisplanning
majorexpansionformoongdalcapacityto3MTanhourandbhujiacapacityto2MT
an hour. This will increase the operational capacity to 60 MT a day from the current
40 MT a day based on a single 12-hour shift.
In addition, Haldiram plans to increase automation in the food processing or fry-
ingsection,thoughChaudharysaystherearesomelimitationssinceautomaticfry-
ingovensoftendonotmatchwithwhattheIndiantongueandeyewantsintermsof
taste and color – and a bit of manual frying ensures consumer acceptability. How-
ever, it is likely that the next round of packaging machines would mostly be import-
ed to ensure high performance, high speed and trouble-free operation. z
L – R: Ninad Deshpande, marketing executive open technology, B&R; Ritesh Raka,
branch manager, B&R Delhi; Shivraj Chaudhary, GM technical, Haldiram; and
Krishan Bansal, sales and application engineer, B&R. Photo: PSA
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