ROTARY BATCH MIXER
SLASHES CYCLE TIMES
EW Packaging contract manufactures
and packages powder, tablet and
capsule products, protein powders,
energy drink mixes, and sports
nutrition products. Customers
include national warehouse clubs
and dietary supplement retailers.

Founded in 2001 as EW Trading
dba EW Packaging, CEO Rob Lonas
renamed it EW Packaging when he
brought the company’s packaging
and printing services in house.

Today EW operates six blister-
filling lines and four bottle-filling
lines and uses flexographic printers
to customise pouch and blister
foils. It also machines its own
tooling, which shortens turnaround
times and reduces costs.

In 2016, the company began
blending dietary supplement and
food powders and manufacturing
tablets and capsules, but the
company’s V-cone blender proved
inefficient. “The machine was a
lot of work and there was a lot of
downtime,” Lonas says. “It took
at least 30 minutes to get a load
in and out, plus another 15 to 20
minutes of actual mixing.”
Next, he tried a ribbon blender,
which reduced loading and
unloading times but compromised
blend quality. “The ribbon blender
has corners, dead zones, where
the powder isn’t mixed,” he says.

Sometimes EW added as much as
10 percent more active ingredient
to the products than required
for HPLC testing to confirm that
the product met the label claim.

In addition, the ribbon blender’s
impeller put product quality at
risk, Lonas says. “It’s chops up
the ingredients and damages the
product at the same time.”
G entler, more accurate
blending To improve EW’s blending
operation, Lonas purchased a
425 L (15 cu ft) Munson Rotary
Batch Mixer that loads, blends, and
discharges in about 15 minutes -
half the time of the previous
blenders. The unit’s horizontal
vessel rotates on external trunnion
rings located at each end, handling
ingredients gently because it has
no agitators. Instead, the vessel has
internal flights that create a four-way
tumble-turn-cut-fold mixing action,
producing homogenous blends
without generating heat, shear
or stratification. Lacking internal
shafts, the mixer has no seals that
are in contact with the product.

“The Rotary Batch
Mixer gives us a
perfect HPLC test
every time”
- Rob Lonas
Chief Executive Officer
EW Packaging
To initiate a blending cycle,
operators hand-weigh ingredients
into a drum. A plant-based protein
product may contain up to eight
ingredients, while a flavoured
creatine product may contain up
to four. The drum containing the
weighed batch is then lifted onto
a mezzanine and dumped through
a security screen into a hopper
that discharges into the mixer’s
stationary inlet. A collection hood
contains fugitive dust during the
loading process, while a single
02 CHP PACKER INTERNATIONAL update
external seal prevents the escape
of dust during vessel rotation.

Lonas highlights the Rotary Batch
Mixer’s gentle mixing action in his
business conversations. “It’s part of
my sales pitch for whatever the job
is - encapsulation, tableting or just
blending a powder,” he says. “This
mixer just folds in the ingredients.

It’s not smashing them or pounding
them together.”
Blends are discharged from the
mixer through a stationary outlet.

Batches destined for encapsulation
or tableting flow into mobile
hoppers that are rolled into the
adjacent room for those processes.

Powder products are discharged
into a screw conveyor that
transports the batch to the feed
hopper of an auger filling machine,
which dispenses it by weight into
bottles, canisters, tubs, or most any
container. The vessel leaves almost no residue
following discharge. “There aren’t
any corners or pockets that
can collect powder,” Lonas says.

Between blending campaigns and
when switching products, operators
wash, rinse, and swab-test the
vessel interior in accordance with
Good Manufacturing Practices.

Lonas says that the blends are
always on-spec, and overages range
between 2 percent and 3 percent
instead of 10 percent previously. “I
sold my V-blender and my ribbon
blender. The Rotary Batch Mixer
gives us a perfect HPLC test every
time.” S
mall size, big output
Despite its modest volumetric
capacity, the mixer outputs high
volumes because it loads and
discharges quickly and blend times



are short, as little as 3 to 6 minutes,
Lonas says. “When we started
getting bigger orders, we got
nervous at first thinking our mixer
wasn’t big enough, but we ran some
big orders with no problems.” In
one case, EW Packaging blended
some 80 batches of a protein
powder over four days, filling all of
it into 2.3 kg (5 lb) tubs.

“The future for us is growing the
powder business because we have
our powder lines so dialed in. It’s
a profitable and a fast way to fill
bottles.” The company’s fastest line
fills as many as 50,000 bottles a day,
which includes capping, induction
sealing, metal detecting, check-
weighing, labelling, lot coding, and
neck banding.

“We seldom tell customers ‘No’
unless they come in with a liquid,”
Lonas says. “If we don’t have the
right machinery, we buy it. Our
niche is getting new products going
for people and cranking it out,
getting them into the market fast.

We get a lot of business because of
our blister capabilities and because
we can do short-run stuff. There
aren’t many other places on the
West Coast that can do that.”
Lonas calls the mixer his
workhorse. “I think we changed
a seal once. There’s not much
maintenance to do on it. It’s one
our most reliable machines.”
info@munsonmachinery.com HANDLING COSMETIC AMPOULES SAFELY
A new sprayer with integrated ampoule breaker from Lutz Packaging provides protection against injuries. Sharp
edges and unsafe handling – breaking glass ampoules is a challenge for many cosmetics users. Lutz Packaging from
Wertheim has reacted by launching a new compact spray system with integrated ampoule breaker that makes for
easier handling of the glass containers, thereby promoting consumer acceptance.

The new Easy Multiple Sprayer from Lutz Packaging combines two components: a removable spray head and
a plastic housing containing an integrated ampoule breaker. It is extremely easy to use: the user inserts the
ampoule into the housing from below and moves the glass container in any direction to break the ampoule head.

With a twist, the ampoule head falls directly into a waste bin – without contact to skin and thus without risking
injury. The user then inserts the opened ampoule into a rubber grommet, places it in the housing and screws on
the spray head. After these few steps, the sprayer is ready for use immediately.

“Our solution will help cosmetics manufacturers to promote the acceptance of glass containers amongst
consumers. We have not seen any comparable system on the market that offers both a spray function and also
serves as ampoule breaker,” says Wenke Hermanns, Business Development Manager at Lutz Packaging.

CHP PACKER INTERNATIONAL update 03