Vertical Form Fill Seal (VFFS) Machines
RADPAK vertical form fill seal (VFFS) machines make pillow, gusseted, flat-bottom and doypack bags from roll film at up to 240 a minute. Specs and quotes.
Vertical form fill seal (VFFS) machines make bags from a roll of film, then fill and seal them in the same machine. RADPAK's 15 models run from twin-tube baggers making up to 240 small bags a minute to machines for 25 kg bags.
What a vertical form fill seal machine does
A vertical form fill seal machine makes the bag and packs it in one pass. Film comes off a roll, runs over a forming shoulder and wraps around a vertical forming tube, where a vertical seal closes it into a tube. Sealing jaws make the bottom seal, product drops through the tube from a doser above, and the jaws then seal the top of that bag, which is also the bottom of the next one, before a knife cuts it free.
Because gravity does the filling, VFFS suits free-flowing products and pieces: snacks, dry food, pet food, powders, granules, and household and chemical products. It is usually the simplest and fastest way to make pillow and gusseted bags, and it takes little floor space.
RADPAK's VFFS range
PPi Technologies Group is the exclusive North American partner for RADPAK, which has built packaging machines in Włocławek, Poland since 1991. Its vertical form fill seal machines come in four main sizes: the RM-25 for bags 50 to 250 mm wide, the RM-32 for bags up to 320 mm wide and 500 mm long, the RM-36 for bags up to 360 × 550 mm, and the RM-45 for pillow and gusseted bags up to 450 × 700 mm.
The RM-55-AI takes the largest bags in the range, up to 550 × 1,000 mm and 25 kg, with impulse sealing jaws for PE film. The RM-36-AI is designed to be washed down in food plants with strict hygiene standards, and the RM-30-CF forms net bags for fresh produce from a roll of net and two bands. For seed packets, SN's FBV 80-120 makes flat pouches 35 to 80 mm wide at up to 90 a minute.
Every RM bagger runs on an Allen-Bradley PLC with a color touch screen, SEW or Nord drives, Festo pneumatics and a SICK photocell for print registration, so the controls are familiar to most North American maintenance teams. Each bag width needs its own forming tube, so list every bag size you plan to run when you ask for a quote.
Intermittent, continuous or twin-tube
Intermittent models, which RADPAK also calls start-stop, stop the film for each cross seal. The RM-25-AC runs at up to 80 bags a minute, the RM-32-AC at up to 70, and the larger RM-36 and RM-45 models at 30 to 50, and RADPAK's largest bags all run on intermittent machines. Continuous-motion models keep the film moving through the sealing jaws instead of stopping for every bag, which is how the RM-25-ACC reaches 140 bags a minute, the RM-32-ACC 100 and the RM-36-ACC 80.
Twin-tube models put two forming tubes in one machine for small bags and sachets: the RM-25-AC Twin makes up to 160 bags a minute and the RM-25-ACC Twin up to 240. Real speed depends on bag length, fill weight and how fast the doser can deliver, so we quote the speed for your product rather than the brochure maximum.
Bag styles, including doypacks
RADPAK machines form pillow bags, gusseted bags, stabilo bags with a flat bottom, and brick bags formed on an integrated carousel and closed with an ironed overlap. The RM-25-AC makes all four.
The ACD models add a rotating sealing jaw that forms stand-up doypacks from roll film, so you can sell in a stand-up pack without buying premade pouches. The RM-32-ACD makes doypacks 120 to 280 mm wide, the RM-36-ACD up to 340 × 340 mm, including zipper doypacks and 3-side seal sachets, and the RM-45-ACD up to 400 × 400 mm with a bottom of up to 140 mm. All three also make pillow bags.
Dosing, film and options
A VFFS bagger is only as accurate as the doser above it, so we specify the two together. Free-flowing granules often go through a volumetric doser, while powders and irregular pieces usually need an auger filler or a weigher. Tell us the product, fill weight and target speed, and we'll size the doser to keep up with the bagger.
Constant-heat jaws seal PP and laminate films. The RM-36 and RM-45 also come with impulse-heat jaws, and the RM-55-AI uses impulse jaws for PE film. On the RM-36-AC and RM-45-AC, an encoder can measure bag length when the film has no print mark, and the RM-36-AC and RM-36-ACC have a splicing mechanism that shortens reel changes. Lines that need longer shelf life or traceability often add nitrogen flushing and date coding.
VFFS, HFFS or premade pouches?
Choose VFFS for pillow, gusseted and flat-bottom bags of free-flowing products at speed, or for doypacks made from roll film. A horizontal form fill seal machine handles liquids, pastes, fragile products, spout pouches and a wider range of stand-up pouch shapes. Premade pouch machines make more sense with many SKUs, short runs and complex pouch designs, since you buy the pouches ready-made.
Our VFFS vs HFFS guide walks through where each approach fits.
Sales and service in North America
PPi Technologies Group handles RADPAK sales, project ownership and service across the U.S. and Canada from Sarasota, Florida. Tell us your product, bag size and target speed, and we'll recommend a model and send a quote.
Featured machines
- RM-25-AC — Vertical form-fill-seal bagger — start-stop motion, up to 80 bags/min.
- RM-25-ACC Twin — Vertical form-fill-seal bagger — continuous motion, up to 240 bags/min.
- RM-32-ACC — Vertical form-fill-seal bagger — continuous motion, up to 100 bags/min.
- RM-36-ACC — Continuous-motion VFFS bagger for pillow and gusseted bags up to 360 × 550 mm, at up to 80
- RM-36-ACD — Intermittent VFFS bagger for doypacks up to 340 × 340 mm, zipper doypacks, pillow bags and
- RM-45-AC — Intermittent VFFS bagger for large pillow and gusseted bags up to 450 × 700 mm, at up to 3