A packaging or food processing machine is judged by one thing: whether it runs your product, in your packaging material, at your site, day after day. A demonstration in Japan on the maker’s standard product and film proves very little about that. The machines that disappoint after arrival are usually the ones bought on a demonstration video, without a test on the buyer’s own product, without anyone asking how they will be cleaned under the buyer’s food safety plan, and without a list of the parts that wear.
This article sets out the three checks that change the outcome — the product test, the hygiene and local-rule check, and the spare-parts plan — and hands off to the articles that cover export documents and installation.
💬 Considering a Japanese packaging or food processing machine? Send us your product, your packaging specification and the machine you have in mind — Sunsho Trade sources machinery from Japan and can arrange the test with the Japanese maker. Tell us about the line.
Test the machine with your own product and packaging material
Ship your actual product and packaging material to the maker in Japan and have the machine run them, because flow, sealing and cutting behaviour depend on the exact material, not on its general category.
“Powder”, “laminated film” or “sauce” each cover materials that behave very differently on a machine. A powder that bridges in a hopper, a film whose sealing layer needs a different temperature window, or a sauce with particles that block a nozzle will not show up in a demonstration on the maker’s own sample. Most makers of packaging and food machinery are used to running customer samples; ask for it as a condition of the quotation.
What to send and state:
| Item | What to provide | Why it matters on the machine |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Enough real product for a meaningful run; its temperature and condition as it reaches the machine | Flow, dosing accuracy, product damage, dust |
| Packaging film or containers | Rolls or containers from your current supplier, with the material structure and thickness | Sealing window, cutting, tracking, registration of printed film |
| Pack format | Drawings of each pack size and style you will run | Forming parts and changeover sets needed per format |
| Target output | The output you need, stated as your requirement | The seller can tell you whether the machine meets it with your material |
| Your climate | Temperature and humidity in your packing room | Film and powders behave differently in humid conditions than in a Japanese test room |
| Inspection needs | Checkweighing, metal detection, seal checks, date coding | Whether these are integrated or added later |
Ask for the test results in writing: a video of the run, the settings used, the seal or fill checks performed and on what samples, and the packed samples themselves, shipped back to you. If your packaging material comes from a different supplier after the machine is installed, the sealing settings may need to be developed again — a reason to test with the film you will actually buy.
Agree the changeover and the format parts at the same time
List every pack size and product you will run and get a quotation for each set of format parts, because a machine that runs one format perfectly can need its own forming tube, dies or guides for every other format.
Format parts — forming sets, sealing jaws for a different width, filling nozzles, star wheels, guide rails — are often priced as options. A buyer who quotes one format and later adds three discovers that the machine price was only the start. Ask the seller to state, for each format: the parts needed, whether they are included, and how a changeover is done — tool-free, with tools, or needing a technician. Changeover method and time matter as much as speed when you run many short batches; ask the seller to demonstrate a changeover during the test.
Check hygienic design against how you will clean
Ask how each product-contact part is cleaned, what materials touch the food and what lubricants are used, and check the answers against your own cleaning plan and your country’s food-contact rules.
Hygienic design is where food machinery differs most from general machinery, and where Japanese machines are often designed with care. The test is not the machine’s reputation, but whether its design fits your process: dry cleaning or washdown, manual or clean-in-place, allergen changeovers, and the chemicals your plant uses.
For a buyer whose plant is in the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery sets specific requirements for machinery intended for use with foodstuffs in section 2.1 of Annex III. In summary, contact materials must comply with the relevant EU rules and be cleanable before each use; contact surfaces must be smooth and easy to clean and disinfect, without ridges or crevices where matter can collect; liquids from the product and from cleaning must drain away; insects and organic build-up must be kept out of areas that cannot be cleaned; and lubricants and other ancillary substances must not come into contact with the food. The Regulation applies from 14 January 2027 (Article 54). Food-contact materials themselves fall under Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, whose Article 3 requires that they do not transfer their constituents to food in quantities that could endanger health or bring about an unacceptable change in the food. Checked on 19 October 2026 against the texts on EUR-Lex.
Outside the EU, the requirements differ, but the questions to ask the seller do not:
- Contact materials. Which grade of stainless steel, plastic and rubber touches the product, and can the maker provide material certificates or declarations of compliance?
- Cleaning method. Is the machine designed for washdown, and to what degree? Which parts come off without tools for cleaning?
- Lubricants. Which lubricants are used near the product zone, and are food-grade lubricants specified?
- Drainage and dead spaces. Where does cleaning water go? Are there hollow sections or joints where product can collect?
- Design standard. Does the maker design to a named hygiene standard, such as ISO 14159 (hygiene requirements for the design of machinery)?
For machine safety, packaging machines also have their own standard series, EN 415, with general requirements in EN 415-10 and machine-specific parts such as form-fill-seal machines. Whether your country expects these, or something else, is the next check.
💬 Need the seller’s answers on contact materials, cleaning and lubricants collected in writing? Ask us to put the questions to the Japanese maker.
Find out what your country requires — before you order
Ask your food safety authority, your certification body and your machinery inspector what they will want to see, and give that list to the seller at the specification stage; a Japanese maker can build and document to a requirement it knows about far more easily than it can retrofit one.
We do not set out each country’s food safety or machinery law here: they differ, they change, and the authoritative answer for your plant comes from your own authority. What we can say is how to collect the answer efficiently. Ask three parties:
- Your food safety authority or auditor: what your food safety plan, certification scheme or customer audit requires of processing and packing equipment — materials, cleanability, documented cleaning.
- Your machinery safety authority or inspector: what marking, standard or technical documentation a machine needs to be put into service, and what language the instructions must be in.
- Your customs broker: whether the machine, or its electrical parts, needs any import approval or registration in your country.
Then turn the answers into a document list for the seller:
| Document | Who produces it | Why you may need it |
|---|---|---|
| Material certificates or declarations for contact parts | Maker or its suppliers | Food-contact compliance; customer audits |
| Lubricant list with data sheets | Maker | Food-grade status in the product zone |
| Cleaning instructions | Maker | Your cleaning procedures and validation |
| Operator and maintenance manual in your required language | Maker | Machinery rules; training |
| Electrical drawings and parts list | Maker | Inspection, maintenance, spare parts |
| Declaration of conformity or test reports, if your country requires them | Maker or a test body | Putting the machine into service |
If the machine is going to Vietnam, its electrical rating and any pressure equipment in the line (steam generators, retorts) bring their own checks — see importing Japanese furnaces and boilers into Vietnam. The export file from Japan follows export from Japan, documents and flow.
Plan the spare parts before the first shift
Get a parts list with part numbers and a recommended first-year spares list from the seller at purchase, and identify which components are Japanese-market models that may be hard to source locally.
Packaging and food machines wear faster than machine tools. Sealing jaws and their coatings, heaters, cutting knives, belts, seals and gaskets, suction cups and sensors are consumables in practice. Some of them are made by the maker itself and can only come from Japan; others — sensors, controllers, pneumatic parts, motors — are bought-in components that may be domestic Japanese models.
Ask for three things:
- A full parts list with part numbers, including the maker and model of every bought-in component, so your maintenance team can look for a local equivalent where one exists.
- A recommended spares list for the first year, split into wear parts to hold on site and parts that can be ordered when needed.
- The ordering route: from the maker, through the seller, or through an agent in your country, and how urgent orders are handled.
Rubber and plastic contact parts, such as seals and gaskets, also have to meet your food-contact requirements; a local substitute that fits mechanically may not be acceptable for that reason. The installation, commissioning and training side of after-sales is in installing Japanese machinery abroad.
Buying other production equipment from Japan at the same time? See new Japanese machine tools and injection moulding machines and presses, or the full list on our industrial sourcing page.
💬 Want the product test, the hygiene questions and the spares list handled on the Japan side before you sign? Talk to us about your packaging or processing line.
Frequently asked questions
1. How much product should we send for a test run?
Enough for the machine to reach stable running, not just a few packs. Ask the maker how much it needs for your format and output, and check whether your product can be exported to Japan for testing — some foods need their own import procedures there, which the maker or we can confirm before you ship.
2. Can the machine run our packaging film from a different supplier later?
Usually, but the sealing settings may have to be developed again, because films of the same nominal type can have different sealing layers. Test with the film you will actually buy, and test again if you change supplier.
3. Does a Japanese food machine automatically meet our hygiene rules?
No. It was designed to its maker’s standard and the Japanese market’s expectations. Collect your own country’s requirements, ask the maker how each is met, and get the material and lubricant documents in writing.
4. Which spare parts should we hold from day one?
The wear parts on the seller’s recommended list — typically sealing parts, knives, heaters, belts, seals and sensors on packaging machines — adjusted for how long an order from Japan takes to reach you. Ask for the list with part numbers at purchase.
5. Who checks that the machine meets our local rules?
You do, with your own authorities. The seller can build and document the machine to requirements it has been given, which is why the list of requirements should go to the seller before the order, not after the machine arrives.
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery, Annex III section 2.1 and Article 54; Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food, Article 3 — EUR-Lex. ISO 14159 (hygiene requirements for the design of machinery) and the EN 415 series (safety of packaging machines), titles and scope checked against national standards body catalogue listings. Checked on 19 October 2026.
More industrial sourcing guides: Japanese Machinery on Overseas Power: Volts, Hz and Marks · Genuine Japanese Industrial Parts: Sourcing Them from Abroad · Buying New Japanese Machine Tools from Overseas, Step by Step. All guides by category are on the industrial sourcing page.