Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is a shear-sensitive emulsion: pump it too hard and it splits. The oil droplets are held in a thin film of protein and stabiliser, and every sharp bend, narrow orifice and high-velocity pass through a pump thins the product, releases free oil and shows up later as separation inside the pack. Temperature works the same way, so cool product paths protect stability. The product also clings and strings at cut-off, and even a trace of oil on the seal jaws leaves a weak or leaking seam — which is exactly what shut-off nozzles prevent. Food-service portion sachets then add speed to all of this by running multi-lane, a demanding combination of care and throughput. A mayonnaise filling machine here works with gentle large-bore piston dosing. Each lane has its own piston that draws a measured volume through a wide port and pushes it out slowly, so the product moves without being worked. Because the dose is a swept volume rather than a timed flow, normal batch-to-batch differences in viscosity do not change the weight in the pack. At the end of every stroke the shut-off nozzle closes positively and cuts the tail instead of dropping a thread onto the film. Product-contact parts are sized and finished for CIP, and the product path can be kept cool along its whole length. The usual formats are the stick pack and the sachet. A mayonnaise stick pack machine makes a narrow single-serve strip torn along its length; it empties in one squeeze, which is why sandwich counters, delivery kitchens and travel catering use it. A mayonnaise sachet packaging machine produces flatter three- or four-side seal portions, the format hotels, canteens, airlines and quick-service kitchens buy in bulk cases and the one whose wider face carries branding and legal text best. Pack width is not only a marketing choice; it decides the lane count. Typical portions run 5 to 15 ml. Output then depends on that pack width, because a machine of this type fills several lanes at once: the cycle rate of the machine and the number of packs leaving it are not the same figure, since each cycle delivers one pack per lane. On the MSM1200 a narrow pack allows 12 lanes and up to 960 packs per minute, while the same machine set for a wide pack runs 6 lanes and up to 480 packs per minute. The rest of the range follows the same order — pack width, then lanes, then speed. The mayonnaise packaging machines that run this product are ARTISTICK (1-5 lanes), ISM400 (2-5), ISM600 (3-7), MSM800 (4-10), MSM1200 (6-12), SPM320 (1-8), SPM800 (4-12) and SPM1200 (7-12). Lower lane counts suit trial volumes, seasonal items and plants that change format often; the wider frames belong on dedicated condiment lines. Typical buyers are condiment and sauce producers, private-label packers and co-packers supplying quick-service chains, catering companies, airline and hotel suppliers, and retail multipacks of portion sachets. With a format change the same line usually covers neighbouring emulsified sauces as well — garlic sauce, aioli, cocktail sauce.