Australia’s ‘other’ FFS pioneer doubles factory size
BY CHRISTOPHER SPEARY
 
AN Australian manufacturer of form-fill-seal (FFS) machines, headed up by a husband and wife team, has just doubled the size of its production facility and is pushing hard into new export markets

The company in question is not TNA Australia but Propac Industrial, of Seven Hills in Sydney’s north western suburbs.

Propac was founded 10 years ago by Craig Pullen and his wife Kim McFadden and manufactures both vertical and horizontal form-fill-seal systems as well as ancillary equipment such as augur fillers and conveyors and platforms for turnkey projects.

Although admirers of fellow Australian manufacturer TNA, founded and run by husband and wife team Alf and Nadia Taylor, the Propac principals say their business has only superficial similarities to the world-renowned Homebush Bay company.

“Not only are we much newer and much smaller than TNA, we manufacture machinery to wrap virtually everything except snacks, which we understand is the major part of their business,” McFadden said.

Propac Industrial’s machines pack a wide variety of things from pet food and smallgoods to electronic components and fertiliser.

Shipping about five systems a month, Propac Industrial is smaller than the other company which is aiming for sales of $100 million this financial year, but McFadden said it is starting to grow rapidly, especially in export markets.

“We are starting to make a serious impact on the international scene,” she said. “In fact, so much so that we have recently more than doubled our factory size to around 1800 square metres to manage this new growth.

“While our local sales will always be vital, these international sales confirm that Propac is designing and building a world-class machine.”

McFadden said that while exports have been mainly to New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, the past few months have seen Propac, which exhibited at PackExpo in Chicago last year, install multiple machines in both North America and Europe.

These installations include an AV4-CB model, an large continuous box motion machine capable of a 600mm wide bag.

This installation is packing up to 25kg of dry pet food, producing a 900mm long gusseted bag with the added unique feature of vacuum.

“The European pet food manufacturer who purchased this machine required the vacuum feature in order to improve its pallet stacking stability. Vacuumising allows the bags to be to be palletised directly without the traditional ‘punching of holes’ into the bags to release air prior to palletising. This reduces both potential contamination and infestation issues,” McFadden said.

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