Pouches provide material benefits

29 November 2005



Benefits in weight, shelf life, marketing opportunities and environmental impact make pouches an interesting alternative to more traditional packs. Rodney Abbott reports


The use of flexible packs to replace rigid containers continues to invade new market sectors and this is hardly surprising when potential users consider their benefits.

For example, stand-up pouches can weigh up to 90% less than conventional packs which saves space and money, simplifies logistics and leads to low waste management charges. At one-third the weight of the traditional can, the pouch is less costly for manufacturers to transport and easier for consumers to carry home and uses fewer raw materials.

Naturally, it is not all positives. Pouches are not the most economical or fastest way of packaging foodstuffs and beverages and they can have a large footprint, but in many instances the advantages make this an irrelevance.

As such, pouches - including reclosable versions – are being used for an increasing and diverse range of goods including wet pet food, sauces, ready meals for end-users and fast food restaurants, beverages, seafood, soups, salads, detergents and other cleaning products, cosmetics and medical goods.

Current food service requirements are being met by offering increased convenience in handling, including easy storage, easy identification, easy opening and easy pouring.

As such, pouches resolve many of the issues facing food service operators today, such as cost management, labour issues, food and employee safety, sanitation and hygiene, and waste disposal costs. With flexible pouches, any customised recipe can be delivered fresh, straight from the central kitchen to the food service outlet, ready to be heated and served.

Wet petfood leads the way

The European market for sterilisable stand-up pouches in the food field amounted to some 750M units in 2004 but, according to Finnish-based pouch maker Huhtamaki, the most important market for retortable stand-up pouches is wet pet food. Market volume in Europe in 2004 for this sector is estimated to have totalled as many as 3.5bn units.

Huhtamaki uses combinations of PET, aluminium, PP and OPA to make a range of retortable pouches and low barrier stand-up pouches with spout or zipper closures, printed flexo, gravure and rotogravure.

"Single web technology is more cost-effective, even with retortable stand-up pouches where production issues seem to have been resolved. Our growth markets are petfood, soup and ready meals, but petfood offers the biggest potential," says marketing manager Clare Knowles.

Another leading European supplier of packaging for wet pet food, Mondi Packaging Flexibles, expresses similar sentiments. The company believes that the pet food market for stand-up pouches will grow, as will the market for detergents and cleaning products.

"Pet food pouches are convenient," says spokeswoman Nicole Feteci. "Laser perforation makes them easy to open. The usual single-serve format does away with the familiar unpleasantness of having a half-empty can sitting around all day until the cat's evening meal. If pouches are made for several servings, they are reclosable, ensuring easy and hygienic storage.

"Pet food pouches have outstanding marketing power. They offer a large display surface for colourful printing that attracts the attention of potential buyers and greatly enhances the appeal of the product and the brand."

Mondi Packaging Flexibles' stand-up pouches are made of plastic and aluminium laminates. Laminates are preferred for packaging readymade dishes and microwaveable food. The company uses film for deep-frozen products and, for refrigerated items, it uses PET encased in printed films.

The neoSteam retortable stand-up pouch is a good example of active flexible packaging for microwave steam cooking. In the microwave, a valve integrated into the package opens in a controlled manner, allowing foods to cook at an optimal pressure and temperature, which preserves nutritional value and taste. The printed transparent barrier laminate provides visual appeal and allows sterilisation up to 135°C, ensuring an extended shelf life of 6-12 months at room temperature.

Opening and closing possibilities for Mondi's stand-up pouches embrace spouts contoured for pouring, tear notch, laser perforation and zipper and the products can be printed flexo and rotogravure. Depending on the order size, the company believes that single web technology is preferable as one work step less is required.

Single or co-extruded

But when it comes to materials, closures, printing and market development each supplier thinks a little differently. "For standard pouches we would use a co-extruded material based on nylon and polyethylene", says Cryovac sales development manager Richard Griffiths. "Various gauges and pigmentation come within this material range. For stand-up pouches we generally use glue laminate structures that give rigidity and the ability to sandwich print.

"Cryovac only offer standard heat seal closures. However, with fluids, using vertical pouch packaging, we offer a range of different heat seal closures and dispensing fitments. Cryovac has both flexo and rotogravure printing capabilities in-house and our expertise is based around multi-layer co-extrusion which is generally single-web films. These have many advantages and we have the option to tailor make materials to suit end uses. The one key requirement for glue laminated structures is that of sandwich print which is not possible on a single web structure. Modern day printing techniques and surface lacquers mean that the requirement for sandwich print is reducing so we find ourselves moving more and more to single web".

According to Griffiths, Cryovac is seeing a large growth in the foodservice market and, more specifically, pumpable foods where it is packing products from sauces and condiments to mash potatoes and hard-boiled eggs. "This trend falls in line with the increase in the foodservice market and the de-skilling of kitchens. The pouch allows product to be delivered in bulk and eliminates the use of large cans and containers, which form bulky waste, but provides ready-to-heat food for the table.

"Technical advantages in co-extrusion have allowed us in many cases to down-gauge pouch materials while maintaining all the advantages of the original heavier materials", he says. "Pouches can be filled hot or cold, at a range of temperatures and in varying degrees of viscosity, in flexible pack sizes ranging from 60ml-10 litres.

"An optional fitment turns these flexible pouches into easy-to-use, manual dispensing units which are intended for serving ketchup-type condiments in food service outlets. Final packs can be frozen, pasteurised or even sterilised, depending on the material used. They can be supplied with easy opening features to prevent using any kind of tool for opening the pouch."

Parkside's four-year track record

Parkside Flexibles (Normanton) has a proven four-year track record in pouch manufacturing and has now brought together its on-site design, printing, lamination, coating and slitting operations. Stand-up and flat pouches are produced with flexo or gravure-printed laminates and a range of handles, resealable zippers, tear notches and hanging holes can be included.

The company says it uses the latest single web technology which has a number of advantages, including rapid machine set up via computer-aided and servo-driven operation, which in turn reduces wastage; elimination of print register issues as the pouch is created from a single web of film, thus avoiding any misalignment of separate webs; and improved leakage control. The base seal is formed on a fold in the single web rather than sealing separate webs.

"More and more companies are using the attraction and flexibility of pouches. Our customers want a modern format for their products, a trend that is rapidly moving to all market segments," says sales director Warren James.

Früh produces stand-up pouches with and without spouts – the range of spouts includes the Menshen – for liquids, creams and sauces. It basically uses laminates such as PET-PE, PET-ALU-PE, and other barrier films, depending on product requirements and process – hot filling, pasteurisation or sterilisation – and key markets include cosmetics, chemical/technical products and food.

Früh also makes three-sided laminate sealed pouches and peel-pouches for medical/technical products in transparent materials, some with a gas barrier, or with aluminium/laminates, flexo or rotogravure printed.

Another large producer, Alcan, makes stand-up and flat pouches ranging from printed, retortable products to standard secondary packaging. "The materials that Alcan utilises depends entirely on the product to be packed and the environment that the pouch will be subjected to", says UK pouch business unit manager Martin Taylor.

"A retortable laminate will use an outer polyester film laminated to an internal barrier film that is, in turn, laminated to an inner polypropylene. Each of these films offers properties that collectively produce a pack with the required specifications/performance.

"Alcan also has a choice of barrier films to use within retort laminate structures but, generally, we opt for Ceramis, which is an Alcan product. Ceramis is made by applying a silicon oxide coating to a range of films – nylon, polyester or polyolefins. This coating increases the barrier properties to both oxygen and moisture while the pack is processed and it is also water clear. Ceramis films are also frequently used on non-retort applications.

"Hot fill, cold fill products are less demanding", says Taylor, "so a laminate of polyester and modified polyethylenes will generally suffice, utilising the outer PET for good definition print. Secondary overwrapping can use orientated polypropylenes in order to keep overall costs low while maintaining high quality print."

Available closures include zippers to inserted spouts and these can also be modified to satisfy the end requirements, from dual function zippers, to spouts with twist closures or pull stoppers. Printing capabilities can be either flexo or gravure.

Alcan currently runs high definition gravure print on some secondary packaging where the print has to reflect or match the quality of print used on the inner product. Pouches are now used in some cases as a multipurpose bag or container – an area historically dominated by vertical form fill machinery – but the pouch concept allows higher quality aesthetics for point of sale and these packs would generally use flexo print.

Alcan serves a variety of markets including shelf stable products for rice and risotto, chilled products such as ready sauces, automotive pouches for handling corrosive products, outer packaging for the games markets and pouches for medical applications. But Taylor says Alcan's fastest growing market is chilled sauces "where the pouch offers convenience and, if required, microwavability."

"Consumers are now beginning to accept that stand-up pouches can hold quality products and offer ease of opening and reduced waste volume after the product has been removed", he says. "Alcan's customers are also realising that these packages now offer diversity from traditional canned products or cartons and they are exploiting this fact to obtain product recognition as pouches offer excellent surface area for branding."

Award winning pouch

Confirmation that pouches have become an important part of the packaging mix came at this year's annual Starpack Awards where Schur Flexible won a Silver Award for its Wet Wipe Stand up pouch. The pack was originally developed for Clorox to pack car wipes but has since been used for numerous applications including the cosmetics industry.

Schur Flexible – which extrudes, prints, and converts film in-house – says that as the original car care product was to be sold in a wide variety of retail outlets, the pack had to be versatile and able to stand up on the shelf to accompany similar products in tubs and bottles. It also had to be possible to hang the pack for smaller outlets where space is at a premium, so a Euro Slot was incorporated.

It features a "user friendly" re-sealable label and the packs can be fully customised to suit individual requirements, including the incorporation of airtight and "peel & seal" strips to prolong freshness after opening.


An optional fitment on Cryovac’s pouches turns them into manual ... An optional fitment on Cryovac’s pouches turns them into manual ...
Schur Flexible - which recently won a Starpack Award - ... Schur Flexible - which recently won a Starpack Award - ...
Parkside Flexibles (Normanton) – which produces a range of stand-up ... Parkside Flexibles (Normanton) – which produces a range of stand-up ...
Huhtamaki says the most important market for retortable stand-up pouches ... Huhtamaki says the most important market for retortable stand-up pouches ...
Schur Flexible won a Silver Award at this year's annual ... Schur Flexible won a Silver Award at this year's annual ...
Mondi’s neoSteam retortable stand-up pouch has an integrated valve which ... Mondi’s neoSteam retortable stand-up pouch has an integrated valve which ...


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