Package Design Advances Enhance Brand Awareness

This is the year that flexible packaging comes into its own in many markets as a means of brand identity and product differentiation. In food packaging especially, new or upgraded products will yield structures that are innovative and practical, and which can be fabricated with ease and economy. So say food-packaging experts, who point to continuing advances in package fabrication and resin formulation.

Even in applications where film is one component of a multimaterial package or a wrap, developments in barrier and other properties continue to enhance its versatility and cost-performance.

“Everyone has had the same package for years but with a different label,” noted Kevin Alexander, packaging market director for Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., Woodlands, TX. Interviewed at Pack Expo in Chicago late last year, Alexander said that the variety and look of packaging are evolving as process and fabrication capabilities advance, companies capitalize on these capabilities to broaden their design horizons, and groups of consumers become more accepting of different package types.

The last point is especially important. Alexander said that a generation of consumers has become accustomed to pouch packaging in the U.S. over the last 20 years. Just as their parents became comfortable with aluminum containers as they took share from tin and glass in many product applications, younger consumers are more open to buying food and beverages in pouches, thus reducing the effort packagers expend in educating shoppers to their benefits.

One notable example of a market where flexible packaging competes with conventional packaging, in this case tin cans, can be seen in tuna fish. Three brands, StarKist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumble Bee, are marketing foil-lined, vacuum-sealed retort pouches in the U.S. This is truly an example of packaging that offers more than a change in label. The pouches are more colorful than cans, obviously different, and so stand out on retail shelves. They weigh less than tin cans, and are easier to handle. Consumer tests by the independent Good Housekeeping Institute, moreover, ranked the flavor of all three brands of the pouch tuna fish ahead of the companies’ canned versions.

Pouch packaging is established in some countries, but in North America it’s relatively new in many consumer areas and full of growth potential. R. Charles Murray, president and CEO of PPi Technologies, a Sarasota, FL, distributor of pouch-packaging machinery, says the North American market for pouches is currently 6 billion units, with one company, Capri Sun, Rye Brook, NY, a maker of juice drinks, accounting for 4 billion pouches alone. Of the remainder, half – 750 million pouches – are used for dog food, a market Murray sees growing. Most countries with established pouch packaging markets, by contrast, consume 7 billion to 8 billion units per year.

Gains in market share by pouches and other flexible packaging, either in new products or in competition against traditional materials, will thus yield huge rewards. Of the $116 billion of plastics used in packaging worldwide, slightly more than half, or $60 billion, goes to film, foil, and flexibles, according to figures developed by consultant Ernst & Young. Even a slight upturn in flexibles use would result in major returns for companies with the right products.

Along with growth in pouch packaging comes innovative approaches to forming the packages. One such is the increasing use of side gussets in standup pouches. The gussets effectively create a four-sided package. Most pouch packaging is two-sided – front and back.

Among companies that have recently begun marketing such designs is converter Kapak Corp., St. Louis Park, MN Company president Gary Bell said that benefits include four panels that can be used to promote brand identity and thus increase visibility at retail; a box-like shape when filled that improves shipping and storage cube; and up to 50% larger fill volumes than with conventional two-sided pouches.

Kapak’s side-gusset standup pouch, tradenamed QuadPAK, can also be fabricated with sealing mechanisms best suited to the contents. QuadPAK features either a conventional press-to-close sealing system or a zipper-like slider device – in the latter case the Hefty Slide-Rite closure, developed by Pactiv Corp., Lake Forest, IL.

The gusseted pouch, meanwhile, is formed on a QuaDSeal machine, manufactured by Japan’s Nishibe Kikai Co. Ltd., which Kapak’s Bell said produces high-quality pouches that work well on filling lines. PPi Technologies sells the machine.

Even the business of individually wrapping candy and other confectionaries is undergoing an evolution in process efficiency and economy. This comes from a new generation of twist-wrap films that provide better dead-fold properties, to improve sealing, at a lower overall price than most conventional materials.

Italy’s Dor Moplefan Group, for example, is promoting two grades of cast polypropylene film, both 35 micron, that are claimed to work effectively on high-speed winding machines. Grade TW-XA is transparent and grade TW-XM is metallized. The films provide appropriate barrier properties and are printable. They are described as suitable replacements for companies that want to move out of PVC due to regulatory concerns, or change from cellophane for cost reasons.

Chevron Phillips has developed a resin for high-speed candy wrapping, but it’s taken a different approach. The DK-11 series of styrene-butadiene copolymer K-Resin has a dead-fold property that is claimed to require only one-half twist to securely wrap a piece of candy. Biaxially oriented PP, with which it competes, typically requires three twists. Chevron Phillips says the K-Resin grade can thus speed up manufacturing lines, raising yields and lowering overall costs.

DK-11 resins, for blown and cast films, also offer enhanced thermal stability, high stiffness and clarity, and breathability. They are targeted as well at fresh-cut produce, shrink-sleeve labels, and overwraps.

Chevron Phillips also offers DK-13 K-Resins, for roll-fed shrink labeling. These are formulated to achieve a machine-direction shrink rate of 50% at a relatively low initiation temperature – 80 to 100°C. With a shrink rate higher than that for oriented PP, which dominates the market, Alexander claimed that roll-fed shrink labels made from the resin can be used on the highly contoured beverage bottles now in vogue in many markets. Roll-fed labels generally yield higher throughput rates than sleeve shrink labels, thus improving the productivity and economics of the operation.