Horizontal Form Fill Seal Machines
SN horizontal form fill seal (HFFS) machines form, fill and seal flat, stand-up and spout pouches from rollstock at up to 450 a minute. Specs and quotes.
Horizontal form fill seal (HFFS) machines make pouches from a roll of film, then fill and seal them in the same machine. SN's range runs one to five pouches per cycle, at up to 450 pouches a minute.
What a horizontal form fill seal machine does
A horizontal form fill seal machine makes the pouch and packs it in one pass. Film runs off a roll and travels horizontally through the forming section, where it is folded, sealed and cut into pouches. Each pouch then moves through stations that open it, fill it and seal the top, so there is no pouch supplier to manage and no magazine of premade pouches to keep loaded.
Product goes into an open pouch from above instead of dropping down a long forming tube, which is why HFFS handles liquids, pastes, fragile products and stand-up pouch shapes well. Our VFFS vs HFFS guide covers where each approach fits.
The four SN series
SN's German-engineered horizontal form fill seal machines come in four series. The Economic Series is the compact entry point: the FME 50 makes flat and stand-up pouches at up to 115 a minute and suits dry products and creams.
The Professional Series is the core range, built around an eight-station intermittent rotary table. Models run from one to five pouches per cycle, from the FMP 80 at up to 100 pouches a minute (200 in duplex) to the FM 500 at up to 450.
The Hygienic Series puts the same process on a stainless steel washdown frame for cheese and dairy, pet food, pharma and other washdown applications, at up to 360 pouches a minute on the FMH 400. The Spout Series forms pouches from the roll, fits a center or corner spout and fills them, at up to 240 a minute on the HSF 400.
One to five pouches per cycle
Speed on an HFFS machine comes mainly from how many pouches it makes per cycle. A simplex machine makes one and a duplex two; SN's triplex, quadruplex and pentaplex models make three, four or five. Each extra lane adds output but narrows the widest pouch the machine can run.
The triplex FBM 30 runs pouches 50 to 93 mm wide at up to 300 a minute, the quadruplex FBM 40 runs 40 to 72 mm pouches at up to 400, and the pentaplex FM 500 runs 70 to 110 mm pouches at up to 450. For large pouches, the FM 060 and FBM 22 offer some of SN's widest format ranges in simplex or duplex.
Pouch styles, products and options
SN machines form 3-side and 4-side seal pouches, stand-up pouches (doypacks), bottom-fold, double flat and membrane pouches, plus spouted pouches on the Spout Series. They fill powders, granules, liquids, pastes and solids, with the filling system chosen for the product.
Common options include reclosure systems such as zippers, nitrogen gas flushing for shelf life, ultrasonic sealing, washdown construction and, on some models, a rotary table extended from 8 to 10 stations. The Economic Series can run recyclable film and paper as well as conventional film.
HFFS, premade pouches or VFFS?
HFFS buys film by the roll instead of finished pouches, so the packaging cost per pouch is usually lower, and the savings grow on long runs of a few SKUs. Premade pouch machines make more sense with many SKUs, short runs, frequent changeovers or complex pouch shapes. Our HFFS vs premade guide walks through the math.
If your pack is a pillow or gusseted bag rather than a pouch, a VFFS machine is usually the simpler and faster choice.
Sales, parts and service in North America
PPi Technologies Group sells and services SN machines across North America from Sarasota, Florida, where spare parts are stocked. Tell us your product, pouch size and target speed, and we'll recommend a model and send a quote.
Featured machines
- SN FMP 80 — Horizontal form, fill, and seal machine (HFFS) — intermittent rotary with 8 stations, inno
- SN FM 500 — The fastest SN Professional Series machine — a pentaplex HFFS rotary making five pouches 7
- SN FBM 40 — Quadruplex HFFS rotary machine for small pouches 40–72 mm wide and 70–160 mm long, making
- SN FMH 80 — Flexible and customizable HFFS rotary machine in hygienic design with simplex and duplex o
- SN LMS 120 — Simplex or duplex spout-pouch machine that forms flat or stand-up pouches from the roll, f
- SN FME 50 — Simple, compact & economical – Horizontal form, fill, and seal machine (HFFS) of the Econo