Packaging machine for producing bag packages, and bag package

A method for producing a bag package formed of a packaging material having two transverse sealing seams and one longitudinal sealing seam and one separation region that serves for tearing open the bag package for the sake of at least partly exposing a product packaged in it, and which separation region is provided with a cutting or perforating line, the improvement wherein the separation region extends spaced apart from and approximately parallel to at least one of the transverse sealing seams and extends around approximately the entire circumference of the bag package;

• and wherein the separation region has a releasably fixed overlap of material of the packaging material extending over approximately the entire circumference, the method including delivering a bandlike packaging material and products to be packaged to a folding, sealing, and separating or perforating unit along a conveying direction, and placing the products on the packaging material at the folding, sealing and separating or perforating unit, folding the packaging material into a tube, providing the tube with sealing seams in the directions transverse and parallel to the conveying direction of the packaging material, and providing the bag package, in its production, with a tearing aid in conjunction with the separation region, the improvement wherein, before the packaging material is folded into a tube, the packaging material is either separated or perforated and overlapped in the separation region, this overlap of material extending at least approximately transversely to the conveying direction of the packaging material, and wherein the overlap of material is detachably fixed in the separation region to the material which it overlaps to form the tearing aid.