Q? Do you make egg trays or wine packs?  Q? Is the cost competitive with other products?  Q? How many do I need to order?  A. A minimum order of $500.00 is required for any existing stock part we manufacture. A custom item will usually require a minimum annual use of 30,000 pieces and up to 2 million parts annually efficiently and cost effectively.  Q? What are the tooling costs?  A. Fibreform has no design charges, although there is a “set up and trial sample” fee for all custom items developed and produced. Once your item has been approved, Fibreform does not charge for duplicate production tooling. Tooling has been designed to be easily and inexpensively duplicated, changed, or repaired, saving customers money.  Q? Can we get a sample made and how fast?  A. Most items can be designed and quoted within two weeks. Once the quote has been approved, the sample item can be produced within a few weeks. After final testing and final approval, duplicate production tools require an additional 2-3 weeks. Timing may vary based on the complexity and requirements necessary for a successful package.  Q?  How do you ensure quality and service?

Molded Fiber 101

Molded fiber, also known as moulded pulp or molded pulp, is a collective term descriptive of the process for producing, strong and environmentally friendly protective material. Typically made from recycled paperboard and/or newsprint it is widely used for packaging solutions. Our industry has seen a growing use of waste non-wood products such as wheat and bagasse for pulp production.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website.

Manufactured with wastepaper or other natural fibers (which are essentially cellulose), molded fiber products are recyclable along with other wastepaper and are biodegradable and compostable where facilities are available. They can also be incinerated without damaging incinerators. Both fiber & water are recycled and reused in manufacturing, resulting in almost zero waste. There are no toxic or hazardous waste materials expelled into the environment.

Common Applications Environmentally Friendly A Nearly Universal Solution Common Applications

Inherently flexible molded fiber offers substantial benefits to manufacturers of Food related, Horticultural, Industrial and Medical products:

• Clam shell and carryout food containers
• Cups, bowls, plates and serving trays
• Planter pots and seedling trays
• Egg, fruit, berry and mushroom containers and trays
• Vehicle Parts; gears, panels, headlights, wheels, etc.
• Household items; toasters, coffee makers, furniture, etc.
• Electronics, cell phones, TV, modems, DVD, etc.
• Single use medical bowls, kidney dishes, bedpans, etc.

Environmentally Friendly

Molded fiber is a renewable and recyclable resource that sustains the environment and is capable of providing the following benefits:

• Recycled pulp fiber
• Recycled material
• Biodegradable
• Compostable
• Safe for Incineration

A Nearly Universal Solution

Molded fiber’s innovative makeup delivers extensive packaging solutions including:

• Transportation cost efficiencies (up to 10x more than polystyrene) from superior nesting capabilities
• Completely usable with no assembly in comparison to cut and fold paper board products
• Exempt to packaging penalties as with polystyrene in many countries.
• Zero or negligible disposable costs, unlike it’s alternative non compostable products.

Frequently Asked Questions

Tooling

Q: Labeling & printing for thermoformed?

A: Labelling and printing of MF have been in existence for decades on egg packaging and Thermoformed products are even more conducive to print due to the amazing surface smoothness. The application of these and other processes to Type 3 (Thermoformed product) is widely being used. Take a look at IMFA’s webinar series on Type 1 , 2 , 3 & 4 and in the Type 4 episode you can see high speed labeling and printing of egg cartons, and this can easily be applied to Thermoformed product.  

There are many smaller bits of equipment for smaller scale applications. Cheaper inkjet printing and self-adhesive labelling which is way more versatile and will suite small volumes compared to egg carton volumes. 

Q: Does thermoforming need to use mold release?

A: There are certain additives that can be used with multiple benefits including assisting in releasing product from the mold. The sticking issues are most typical on the press tools and not in the molding/forming tools. Release agents sprayed onto the tooling (either manually or built in as part of your machine system), can be very helpful in releasing problematic products. One should always try and understand what is causing the issues with releasing to better address the problem. Whilst not limited to the following, it could be poor tooling alignment, poor tooling design with problem angles or depth, tool temperature, unfavorable raw material being more prone to producing “stickies”, dirty or poor tool cleaning and many more.

Q. Forming tool facing upwards vs. facing downwards for thermoforming?

A: Typically, your tool will need to land up facing up so that the transfer tool can pick it up off the forming tool and then deposit it down onto a bottom press tool, so much depends on the geometry of the tool/product and whether you have deep “wells/ dams”.  Some forming systems allow for a tooling platen holding the tools to rotate through 180 degrees allowing for a “tool facing down” before submersion and rotating again (“tool facing up”) before transfer. These machines can also then be submerged “tool up and returned without rotating to transfer “tool up”. The issues with forming on Thermoform are unlikely to be different, in principle, to conventional forming.

Q. For good after pressing do you need a higher or lower temperature?

A: Temperature is the last resort for drying a thermoformed product. One should first off spend every effort in reducing the moisture content of your wet product before placing it on the heated press tools. Pressure is vital and particularly controlling the pressure/time curve on closing. Most simple TF machines will not allow you to manipulate in milliseconds, the closing pressure. Heat, whilst the most impactful in reducing cycle times, comes with a host of consequences. Most TF press tools are aluminum and heat softens them chronically and leads to damage and high wear. Extreme temperatures also aggravate the “burning” of “stickies/ residue” onto the press tools which in turn cause fiber off the next product to stick and further aggravate the situation. So, try ensuring you have every other moisture reducing trick covered before heading for the increase temp button.

Molding

Q. What is the most important specification in pulp for conventional? Does this change with thermoforming?

A: In a very generic answer which ignores many product specific requirements; cleanliness (no plastic, sand, metal, wet strength contaminants) and freeness of your fibre are very important. Conventional is way more forgiving on cleanliness but only to a point. Since TF has very high cost, soft aluminum pressing tools, which do not like raw material with abrasives of metals, nor plastics even in micro form which will stick to your heated press tools and quickly stop the Thermoformer. A conventional machine will also accommodate a lower freeness fibre than TF will.

Q. What are the key challenges to be addressed for the MF industry to replace polystyrene?

A: This could be answered from so many different perspectives, but I will answer it from a MF manufacturing point of view. Conventional machines with high volume outputs are more able to compete with Polystyrene products on price but not necessarily on aesthetics unless after pressed. There are big issues with after pressing which typically require high volume and infrequent product design changes. Egg packaging is typical of a MF product which has easily displaced polystyrene and outperformed it on many levels.

So many of the polystyrene products we currently identify with are in the foodservice industry (food clams etc) and whilst Moulded Fibre and particularly Thermoformed MF, easily competes aesthetically, the same cannot be said for pricing. Our industry’s biggest challenge here is the ratio between capital cost vs output. We are seeing a plethora of equipment manufacturers in plastic thermoforming or injection moulders now converting to Molded Fibre. The issue is that “typically” the pulp version of the machine making the displacement product but only in pulp, costs the same to buy as it’s plastic producing counterpart but puts out only around 10 to 20 percent of its plastic/ polystyrene counterpart. Again, this is a very broad comment easily identifying with food service products and could be different for many other products. So, getting our pulp Thermoformed cycle times down is the single biggest influence we can have in reducing costs and being more competitive in our bid to displace polystyrene.   (And yes, legislation, after all of these decades, is coming to our aid along with better informed consumers).

TF machines produce amazingly smooth product with exceptional dimensional stability with no further after pressing required. 

TF products are typically much lower caliper, and this added to the exceptional finish and dimensional stability, ensure that they stack very well resulting in much higher shipping. efficiencies. Also, much enhanced denesting capabilities for ultra-high speed denesting. 

Conventional product right out of the drier ( like egg trays -not egg cartons), do not require after pressing but are subject to dimensional instability related to raw material shrinkage and drying variations. The denesting of these unpressed products , whilst possible, are not kind to ultra-high speed applications. 

Conventional product requiring smoother finishes or improved dimensional stability will need to be after pressed. After presses require tooling and are typically not that versatile in terms of dealing with multiple different product designs. 

TF product is always going to have better aesthetics than Conventional and better dimensional stability, it is whether the pro

Q. For good after pressing do you need a higher or lower temperature?

A: Temperature is the last resort for drying a thermoformed product. One should first off spend every effort in reducing the moisture content of your wet product before placing it on the heated press tools. Pressure is vital and particularly controlling the pressure/time curve on closing. Most simple TF machines will not allow you to manipulate in milliseconds, the closing pressure. Heat, whilst the most impactful in reducing cycle times, comes with a host of consequences. Most TF press tools are aluminum and heat softens them chronically and leads to damage and high wear. Extreme temperatures also aggravate the “burning” of “stickies/ residue” onto the press tools which in turn cause fiber off the next product to stick and further aggravate the situation. So, try ensuring you have every other moisture reducing trick covered before heading for the increase temp button.

Q. What are the key different challenges between conventional and thermoforming?

• A: Capital cost per output is the single biggest differentiator between the two. A typical comparison would be (and this is very broad) , buying a Thermoformer or a Conventional machine from the same company and spending the same capital, the conventional (excluding after pressing and printing) would produce about 7 x more per given time frame than a Thermoformer.
• A: Tooling cost per ton of output per day on TF could be about $100k vs a conventional putting out 7 ton per day costing the same $100k for all of its tooling. A small 2 ton per day conventional could tooling as low as $25k
• A: TF machine whilst able to run on thermo oil (many manufacturers will not venture into this due to the ongoing oil leak issues) typically runs on electrical energy whilst conventional machines can run their driers on many different options such as gas, steam, biomass etc.
• A: There are many more considerations between the two but too vast to answer in this forum.

Q. What is the easiest way to increase % solids without wet pressing?

A: The items that influence solids content off the moulder include but are not limited to the following: Fibre freeness, pulp/water temperature, cycle time (obvious and least attractive), drainage aids, efficiency and capacity of your vacuum system, tool design (back-end drainage) and screen wire selection. Understanding all of the aforementioned elements influencing solids will lead you to determining which of them you have scope to improve on and which will give you the best return on your cost and efforts.

Q. Can you describe the H2O treatment system? What is the typical H2O demand/ton of finished product?

A: The diversity of water treatment systems is such that this cannot be answered on this forum. Typical water usage in a system that does filter and recover/reuse all of its systems’ water will be limited to that which is flashed off in the drying process, this being pressing in Thermoforming or the drier in a conventional system. Assuming you were running an underwhelming solids content of 25% off your moulder (TF or Conventional), in drying you would flash off around 3L of water for every Kg of product produced. (This is not a science lesson on splitting hairs between incoming raw material moisture content and outgoing 6 to 8% product moisture, it’s a simple arithmetic take on it). There are many efforts taking place which strive to recover, through condensation, evacuated moisture during the drying process, this will obviously result in lowering the amount of water lost to atmosphere and hence a lowering of the typical 3L/Kg.

Q: How do you make pulp beer bottles?

A: Any bottle shaped MF product that is a single piece product is made in a split forming mould, it is the only way to remove such a shape from a forming or pressing mould. The mould literally opens in two to remove the product. You are likely to find an example of a medical urine bottle being made on the internet and this clearly shows the split mould process. 

Q: How important is egg tray design? Trays with holes vs. trays without?

A: Egg tray design is critical for many reasons, some of which I will list below. 

• Firstly, are what size eggs you will put in the trays as eggs are graded into size categories by specified weight. Jumbo eggs will not fit in a tray designed for small or medium eggs and likewise, you would not want to waste the shipping space of having a Jumbo tray carrying only smaller eggs.
• Many egg grading (weighing and packing) machines are highly sophisticated and high speed and require all packaging passing through to comply to a recognized set of standards related mainly to dimensions. This is due to “pre-sets” on the machines that apply to sizes of packaging. Even the most basic farm collection and packing machines will require a compliant tray.

• Material shrinkage is a major factor in MF drying and very specific shrinkage dates needs to be factored into your tool design to compensate for this shrinkage.

Tray with or without “holes” refers to holes at the top of the posts on an egg tray (or a high post egg carton for that matter or anything with high posts in the geometry). 

• If you don’t already know you would quickly learn that any geometry on a conventional Type 1 or Type 2 product will battle to dry the “pointy bits.” This is because of the poor air flow to this area during drying. Designing a hole at the tip of this geometry allows air to flow through there and brings that area more in line with air impingement of the rest of the product.

Drying

Q. Is electric drying “radiant” heat viable in conventional oven?

A: In my 30 years in this industry and with many personal investigations into this in various countries, I have not been able to get the economics to stack up using electricity in big conventional driers. This is not to say that technology will not change this situation.

Q. How to build ovens that detect low humidity?

A: This is a topic that would best be dealt with in some future collaborative workshop rather than in a Q&A for the website. My best practice is to run frequent (manual) moisture profiling in the different zones in the drier. This needs to be done on all products in order to optimize drier settings for energy consumption and in order to manage shrinkage of the product.

Q. Replace NGAS with renewables?

A: Not any easy one and not able to address it on this forum. There are many steam fed driers that are being powered by biomass from annual agricultural crops which are clearly renewable.

Miscellaneous

Q. If I’m new to the industry, are there books or classes that you’d suggest?

A: Unfortunately, not. This industry has played its cards close to its chest for its entire relatively short history. Snag a rare, retired fella