Fresh fruit and pickles look like opposite products and share the hardest part of the job. Both put liquid exactly where the film has to bond — brine in one case, juice and condensation in the other — and both are marked by handling that a dry product would shrug off.
Where they part company is what the pack does next. A pickle pack has to hold brine and stay shut. A produce pack has to let a living product breathe without letting it spoil.
Produce and pickles we pack
| Product | What your line has to handle |
|---|---|
| Cut and prepared fruit | Free juice at the seal, and product that is still respiring |
| Whole fruit and berries | Gentle handling, and a pack that protects through distribution |
| Pickles and gherkins | Brine at the seal line, and packs that travel without leaking |
| Olives and antipasti | Solids and liquid dosed accurately together |
| Fermented vegetables | A pack that copes with gas produced after sealing |
What these packs demand
A clean seal with liquid in the pack
Liquid on the sealing surface stops the film bonding, and the pack looks perfect until it is in a case with twenty others. Turning the heat up does not fix it. Ask how the machine keeps that area clear, and insist on seeing it at your real brine level rather than a comfortable demonstration fill.
Two fills, two accuracy figures
Pickles, olives and antipasti need a solids weight or count and a liquid fill, and each has its own accuracy. Ask for them separately — a combined figure hides which half is drifting.
Produce keeps breathing
Cut fruit and vegetables go on respiring inside the pack, which makes film permeability part of the specification rather than a detail. Too tight and the product spoils, too open and it dries out. Worth having your film supplier in the same conversation as your machine supplier.
Fermentation produces gas
If the product is still fermenting, the pack has to tolerate the pressure or vent it by design. A seal specified for a static product will find this out weeks into shelf life, which is the most expensive place to find it.
Where each class fits
Punnets and trays you buy in point at tray sealing. Apollo, Athena and the Hera range are sized to your own trays, and this is where the large majority of fresh produce work sits. Where the pack is made on the machine out of film — brine portions included — you are looking at form fill and seal, published at 100–300 a minute. Olives and antipasti more often arrive in ready-made tubs, which puts them with cup fill and seal at up to 120 cups a minute.
Three things to confirm first
How much free liquid the pack carries, how many times product changes hands between prep and pack, and — for fresh produce — what film your supplier recommends. Confirm those three and the rest of the specification follows quickly.