India’s flexible packaging industry is looking for alternatives that can balance performance with improved end-of-life outcomes. For Balrampur Chini Mills, that conversation begins much further upstream – with agriculture.

Speaking at the 13th Specialty Films & Flexible Packaging Global Summit in Mumbai, Stefan Barot, president – Chemicals Division, Balrampur Chini Mills, outlined the company’s plans to build a domestic value chain around polylactic acid (PLA), a bio-based polymer produced from renewable feedstocks.

With access to around 5.5 lakh farmers through its sugar operations, Barot sees agriculture as a significant part of the transition towards a bio-based economy. “They will be the base for the future if we transition into a bio-based economy,” he said.

The company is setting up an 80,000-tonne PLA facility in India and expects production activities to begin later this year. The process converts glucose into lactic acid through fermentation, followed by purification and polymerization to produce PLA.

The resulting material, according to Barot, offers several attributes relevant to sustainability discussions. “We have a material which is made in India, bio-based, compostable, low carbon footprint and recyclable,” he said.

Balrampur Chini Mills is positioning itself primarily as an upstream material supplier. “We will not compound. We will not convert. That will be you – our partners and customers – who do that,” Barot told the audience.

Flexible packaging enters the equation

While PLA already has applications in products such as trays, straws and sticks, Barot believes the next opportunity lies in more demanding applications, including flexible packaging.

That, however, comes with its own challenges.

Multi-layer flexible packaging exists for a reason: it delivers combinations of barrier, mechanical and processing properties that single materials often cannot achieve. Recycling such structures can be difficult, particularly when packaging is lightweight, contaminated with food or escapes formal collection systems.

Barot argued that bio-based and compostable alternatives could offer another route for addressing highly leaked packaging waste. “The question is always what is the end of life we want to have for these products,” he said. “Can we bring them back? How do we keep them circular?”

The company has therefore been exploring biaxially oriented PLA (BOPLA) for flexible packaging applications. Working with Polyplex, Balrampur Chini Mills evaluated the material’s mechanical properties, barrier performance, puncture resistance and seal strength.

The results, Barot said, indicate that BOPLA can be processed for a range of applications. While its performance may not exactly match conventional BOPET in every respect, “it has good enough processing characteristics to be worked on,” he said.

For applications requiring higher barrier properties, the companies also evaluated laminated structures using aluminum-coated BOPLA films. This improved water vapor and oxygen barrier performance while retaining the bio-based and compostable positioning of the structure.

“Technically, this is a workable solution if we want to have something which is compostable, bio-based and circular,” Barot said.

Seal strength was another area of evaluation, with the company reporting encouraging results. The material has also been tested on high-speed packaging equipment, suggesting that its potential will ultimately depend not only on material performance but also on how effectively it fits into existing converting and packaging operations.

The next phase, Barot indicated, will involve the larger question of market and regulatory acceptance.

For India’s flexible packaging sector, the significance of the development lies in the emergence of another material pathway rather than a simple replacement for conventional plastics. BOPLA will have to demonstrate functionality, processability and a credible end-of-life route.

But with domestic production of PLA moving closer to reality, the conversation around bio-based flexible packaging may soon shift from what is technically possible elsewhere to what can be developed, converted and scaled in India.