Overwrapping machines and wrap-around sleeve manufacturer ELITER Packaging Machinery has announced the launch of its new upgraded intermittent carton machine.

Referred to as the 'Gran Sonata' Balcony Cartoner, the next-generation machine will be used for food carton packaging applications.

According to the company, it is equipped with all the modern features required of a food application carton machine.

With the capacity of packaging up to 80 cartons per minute, Gran Sonata is claimed to have a low-maintenance design, open profile, as well as multiaxis servo drive systems.

The Wenzhou, China-based company said that its cartoner is easy to maintain and clean and also provides enhanced hygiene in packaging.

The cartoner features a balcony design along with a complete stainless steel structure and frame.

It is capable of covering large cartons, with a maximum carton size of 320mm x 320mm x 130mm, as an example a 12-inch frozen pizza box would be within its capabilities.

Gran Sonata has been rolled out to address the requirements of food industry customers in high-end markets such as Europe and North America, helping them to fulfil food safety, hygiene, and efficiency standards in those markets.

According to a report by Sustainable Packaging News, the machine comes with some additional options to add advanced automatic size changeover for supporting various fast and repeated format changes.

The report quoted ELITER Packaging Machinery R+D+I Engineering head Lingmeng Huang as saying: “The standard version of ‘Gran Sonata’ Balcony Cartoner comes in complete SUS construction and can be optionally customised as washdown to IP65.”

Other features of the ELITER Packaging Machinery’s new cartoner include a fixed but adjustable carton magazine, Meler B4 glue melting system, Nordson Mesa or Nordson ProBlue glue melter, as well as an extended and powered carton hopper.