Meyer Seals

Alfelder Kunststoffwerke Hermann Meyer GmbH celebrated 125 successful years on the market in 2004. The company has produced sealing materials for packaging throughout these years.
This brief historical review shows that Meyer has constantly come up with innovations which have raised our competitiveness and secured the future of the business.

Today we produce some 15 billion sealing inserts each year for every branch of industry around the world. The success story began in ...

• 1879 Hermann Meyer founded a cork goods factory in Alfeld in Lower Saxony.
• 1880 Meyer constructed a cork cutting machine, to produce round and tapered bottle corks, which revolutionised the cork processing industry. The machine delivered an unimagined fineness
  of cut and dimensional accuracy, yet even more impressive was its enormous output: It increased daily production fivefold to 15,000 corks.
• 1894 A further invention by the company's founder left the global competition standing: Hermann Meyer designed a machine to cut wafer-thin paper from cork crust that the cigarette industry required for its filters. Meyer exported throughout Europe and overseas.
• 1900 Meyer built a new works on Hildesheimer Strasse in Alfeld. Over 60 people worked there. 25 new, for the most part self-constructed, special machines were commissioned for the growing production of cork paper alone.
• 1927/28 Further patents obtained for refinements to the cork cutting machines and for improvements to the bottle and barrel corks ensured the competitiveness of the enterprise - even beyond the looming global economic depression.
• 1960 The manufacture of corks was stopped. Production processes had already been thoroughly restructured two years previously. Sealing inserts for aluminium and plastic closures alone were now produced on punching machines.
• 1984 The first system to produce PE foam was commissioned.
• 1994 In the wake of rising demand, the company set up a dedicated department for the production of tape and coil goods.
• 1995 Extrusion capacity was doubled as a third production line started work.
• 1999 A second works was opened in the Limmer district of Alfeld solely to produce tape and coil goods.
• 2004 Meyer Seals reacted to the increasing demand for PE foam by installing the fourth extrusion line, thereby increasing capacity by 25 per cent.
• 2008 Meyer Seals Asia started production in Thailand. Goods are manufactured for the filling industries active on the Asian market in the agrochemicals, mineral oil products and foodstuffs sectors.

Aiming for Technological Leadership
Apart from the long tradition of the company, the work of our large technical applications laboratory is a major characteristic of Meyer Seals. We aim for technological leadership and create innovations in close cooperation with packaging developers and bottling and filling companies.
Meyer Seals is the first port of call for all reputable industrial bottlers and fillers when it comes to the development of new sealing inserts. We simulate the industrial filling process in our laboratory. In doing so
our application engineers think through the complete process chain, from the supplier of raw materials to the insertion of sealing inserts on our customers' premises, to the manufacturers of closures, through to the industrial filler. Our experts examine the question of how the overall assemblage of closure/sealing insert/container stand up to the test of practical use: During filling, in the preservation of the filled or bottled material and during application.
Our technical customer service supports both producers of closures and the filling and bottling plants. It
provides extensive, on-the-spot assistance during filling trials at our customers' works from Stuttgart to
Shanghai.

Innovations 2008

Alkoseal with tab

Ease of use for premium product consumers
Meyer Seals has developed a sealing insert for inductive sealing especially for fillers of premium coffee and premium spreads, which offers consumers maximum ease of use. The insert has a tab to pull the foil away from the edge of the container.
Consumers know this system from many other products and are conversant in its use.
A special feature of this insert is the carrier material - it remains in the closure after opening for the first time and provides optimum secondary sealing properties - and it forms a unit with the foil part fitted with a tab. The insertion process at the closure manufacturer's works thus involves just one work
step, as before.
The positioning of the tab on the outer circumference of the disc and the pliant carrier material ensure an even application of pressure during the sealing process, thus providing constant strength of the sealing seam around the complete circumference of the container opening.

Alkoflex with Absorber Sealant Layer

A combination of induction and absorption
The oxygen held at the top of a container reacts with the contents, thereby adversely changing the natural colour and taste of the contents. This leads to a considerable shortening of the shelf life, particularly in the case of high quality products which are filled without the addition of conservation agents or without being subject to strong heating.
Meyer Seals has taken on this problem and has succeeded in developing an insert which combines the tried-and-tested originality protection of an induction seal insert with a good oxygen absorption capability.
The result of the development work is a one-part, peel-back seal insert which absorbs the oxygen at the top of the container after inductive sealing, thus preventing a reaction with the contents.

Sealing Inserts with Colour Coating

Bottlers and fillers who wanted coloured inserts in the past were obliged to buy-in large quantities - until now. By using the latest extrusion and dosing technology, Meyer-Seals has succeeded in replacing dyed foils (high minimum purchase volume) by applying a dyed extrusion layer. We are also able to produce the dyed extrusion goods in small quantities. This inhouse process enables us to react with extreme flexibility to special requests made by customers. The colours of the inserts can be adapted individually to the colour of the closure, the container, the contents or the corporate colours of the bottler or filler.

The Purity of Wine Protected by a Screw Cap

Meyer Seals has reacted to the increasing popularity of aluminium screw caps amongst wine-lovers. We meet the highly varied requirements on the storage and ripening process and on the opening and sealing properties with a complete range of sealing inserts for use in an attractive variety of aluminium screw caps for wine.

PE or PP Foam Extrusion

Meyer Seals extrudes PE or PP foam in a variety of densities and thickness. Non-laminated or laminated, in disc or in tape / coil form, these foams are used in virtually every branch of industry. The foam is extruded in a continuous process around the clock, seven days a week, to ensure a constantly high quality of the foam.

Laminating and Punching or Slitting

Bringing together the carrier material and foil laminates, punching and packaging is an integrated process. Meyer Seals handles even large orders in a highly efficient production process in a matter of hours, without interruptions or temporary storage. Over 15 billion sealing inserts in every kind of design, packed in PE tubes or tipped loose into cartons, are produced each year. We process both small quantities and large volumes in a three-shift system for all branches of industry. We supply tape and coil goods to manufacturers of closures for them to punch and insert themselves. Differing materials are brought together under pressure and heat to produce permanent or separable compounds before being cut to the desired width.

Product groups
Meyer Seals offers the complete range of sealing inserts and rings for all plastic and aluminium closures. All bottling and filling industries seal their containers with Meyer Seals, whether these hold foodstuffs, agrochemicals, cosmetics or mineral oil products.
Sales
Today exports account for 80 percent of total turnover. This success is not least due to an international sales team which represents Meyer Seals on every continent on Earth.