Food producers are targeting to provide the best regarding food quality products, to the maximum possible self-life. Flexible packaging plays a key role to this, by providing the necessary stability to the food-stuff and the corresponding barrier properties. In parallel, the trend to reduce plies to multi-layer laminates, and thus the thickness of the materials in use, produce a very challenging combination, Hatzopoulos R&D is working several years now.
Solutions which include removing materials’ layers, maintaining the barrier properties of the laminates, already exist on several market segments. For example, for dried soups (and in general de-hydrated foods, produced in sachet-type pack format), the triplex PET or Paper+ALU+PE, can be replaced by an ultra-high barrier alu-foil free combination PET or Paper +OPP white/opaque/met. Powdered foods which were packed in a PET+OPP barrier+PE structure can be produced in double layer laminates like PET+PE-EVOH. Coffee is a very sensitive food, so usually an alu-foil structure is needed. However coffee beans could be very successfully packed into a double layer PET+PE-EVOH laminate, by choosing the correct PE thickness and recipe. Our R&D department will be happy to assist to any relevant inquiry.