Plastics films converter and printer Robbie Mfg. Inc. (Lenexa, KS) is among winners of the recent Flexible Packaging Achievement Awards, presented by the Flexible Packaging Assn. for Robbie's work on a biodegradable, sealable bag for deli sandwiches. The bags replace polystyrene clamshell packaging.
For the bags, Robbie Mfg. converted film processed by made of Innovia Films (Cumbria, UK) using that latter firm's NatureFlex NVS material. Innovia is headquartered in England but globally active, to include a film extruson facility in Tecumseh, KS, about 60 miles from Lenexa. NatureFlex is produced from wood pulp and is certified under ASTM D6400 to compost within six weeks.
In the competition, Robbie Mfg. won a Gold Award for Packaging Excellence and another Gold Award for Sustainability and Environmental Achievement for its "Hot N Handy Bio-Pouch." The Bio-Pouch is flexograpically surface printed with a random four-color repeat graphic highlighting its biodegradability. The awards were presented at the 2009 Flexible Packaging Achievement Awards in Naples, Florida on February 25, 2009.
The package has a built-in gusset, which allows for various sizes of sandwiches to fit into one pouch, thus eliminating the need to stock multiple SKUs for each sandwich. —[email protected]
