Petfood CEO Balou welcomes visitors to tbs-pack GmbH in Erftstadt. Managing Director Thomas Stumpp's golden retriever is the envy of his fellow dogs, as he is presumably allowed to sample a lot of what later ends up in the company's pouch packaging. Pet food is one of the business areas of the packaging specialist from Erftstadt.
Founded over 20 years ago, the medium-sized company is regarded as an all-rounder in the packaging sector - also thanks to its participation in the Alpha-Pack-Group. different flexible materials, bag manufacture and the corresponding filling and packaging machines through to contract packaging customers get everything from a single source here. „Our customers benefit from the expertise of both companies as well as from our networks and our suppliers,“ says Managing Director Thomas Stumpp, who heads up the companies tbs-pack GmbH, alpha-pack GmbH and alpha-automatic GmbH. Since 2022, the Managing Director has combined the three core competences of packaging materials, machines and automated packaging solutions under the umbrella of „Home of Packaging“.
In the technical centre and showroom in Erftstadt, a wide variety of systems are ready for delivery or awaiting acceptance by the customer. They have all been Customised to the needs of the respective client, The vertical flow-wrapping machine with multi-head weigher, dosing system and product feed is built to save space. There are also rotary filling machines, carton erectors, doypack machines for pre-made pouches or inline production from the reel, and much more. The company builds around 80 per cent of the systems itself. Scales and dosing systems are bought in. A dedicated team of technicians is responsible for the packaging machines and takes care of maintenance and service.
„However, we don't just offer complete solutions, we also see ourselves as an industry networker, as our solutions are just as suitable for pet food manufacturers as they are for food and non-food producers.“
Thomas Stumpp, Managing Director
The Petfood division currently accounts for around 15 per cent of total business. Thomas Stumpp: „Pet food is an enormous growth market. Dog and cat food makes up a large proportion, but we also pack products for birds, fish and rabbits.“ tbs-pack supplies around 80 per cent of its packaging solutions to German-speaking countries and the Netherlands. „The majority of our customers are based in Europe, but we also supply customers in Dubai and China.“
Straight In the pet food sector, many brands are produced by just a few manufacturers. Some of them, such as the two largest German family-run pet food manufacturers, have been relying on materials and technology from tbs-pack for years. „But our customers also include many start-ups and small companies. In the pet food sector, there have been a lot of start-ups in recent years that have had good product ideas and have been equipped with the right machines and packaging materials by us.“
Many manufacturers in the pet food industry are now also switching to monomaterials. tbs-pack is therefore carrying out tests in Erftstadt, how new materials run on existing machines and at which points of the systems modifications may be necessary. In most cases, the sealing tools have to be adapted, as mono-materials or paper-based packaging exhibit different sealing behaviour than conventional plastic composite films. „The costs of mono-material films are now in the same price segment as conventional composite films. Paper, on the other hand, is around 30 per cent more expensive, and we are seeing some manufacturers moving away from it again.“
How tbs-pack often packs dry food for dogs or cats in stand-up pouches made from certified polypropylene monomaterial. The retort pouches with individual closure systems are suitable for wet food, and liquid products are in good hands in the mono-material spout pouch. Recyclate is also used in the non-food sector. „tbs-pack also produces wrapping film for onpacks, wallpaper rolls and magazines or sleeves for bottles. We have been using a proportion of recycled plastic in this area for a long time,“ explains Marketing Manager Rita Zuri.
Cobot for smaller palletising tasks
The Erftstadt site, which the company moved into in 2019, has extensive storage capacity in addition to office space and a technical centre. Thomas Stumpp points to the Advantage of your fulfilment service „For some products, the regulations change more frequently and manufacturers have their films printed digitally. We then provide these customers with the film material in advance and store larger quantities ready for call-off.“
The tbs-pack showroom is currently home to Herby, the company's latest helper. The Cobot for palletising tasks was developed by alpha-pack GmbH especially for smaller batches and can stack up to ten cartons per minute and weights of up to 30 kilograms reliably and automatically onto pallets. This makes it the perfect addition to the warehouse of small and medium-sized companies.
tbs-pack offers a contract packaging service to support its customers' workflows in the event of time and personnel bottlenecks. Companies can use the Temporary outsourcing of work processes meet their delivery times or compensate for a lack of in-house expertise. This can relate to filling, packaging, labelling and transport logistics, for example.
The Home of Packaging thus offers an extensive product portfolio for the food and non-food sectors, ranging from environmentally friendly packaging materials to semi- and fully automatic packaging machines, robot technology and packaging services. Office dog Balou and the other furry friends of the employees also feel completely at home, when they are once again allowed to test a batch of dog treats from customers. Just to be on the safe side and make sure that the treats in the packaging stay fresh and crunchy.
