UPM Specialty Papers continues to work with partners across the food packaging value network, co-creating innovative products that help to shape the future of sustainable packaging. A recent project undertaken with Unipaco, a Polish converter in flexible packaging materials, has now resulted in a recyclable, heat sealable salad and herb pot wrapper that guarantees product safety. The structure also meets strict German 95/5 mono-material requirements, with single-component materials accounting for 95% of the packaging mass.

Growing demand

Brands worldwide are setting increasingly ambitious sustainability targets, especially in terms of recyclability. At the same time, global regulations are becoming ever more stringent. No surprise, therefore, that the industry has seen an exponential growth in the demand for alternatives to flexible plastic packaging. UPM Specialty Papers and Unipaco teamed up to find an answer to the challenge in one specific area: wrapper for salad and herb pots.

UPM Solide Lucent PE coating

The partnership has resulted in two versions of packaging that combine UPM papers and Unipaco coatings. The first is based on innovative barrier base paper UPM Solide Lucent 78 g/m2 with a 4 g/m2 PE coating. This strong and extremely versatile barrier-based paper offers a unique natural look and feel. Proven to be particularly well suited to coating and lamination, UPM Solide Lucent provides a superior surface for further converting and printing, including rotogravure. The exceptionally thin 4 g/m2 PE layer delivers the required moisture resistance and heat-sealable properties.

“By combining our papers with an extremely thin PE coating, we set out to create a packaging that helped our customers both to meet their recyclability goals and also comply with all relevant regulations,” explained Kirsi Lahtela, senior manager, product portfolio management, UPM Specialty Papers. “The project provided Unipaco with their first opportunity to test our barrier base papers in addition to more familiar coated one side papers. We were delighted to see that UPM Solide Lucent performed perfectly on the coating equipment.”

UPM FlexPack PE coating

The second version pairs UPM FlexPack 80 g/m2 with a 4 g/m2 PE coating. UPM’s coated one-side UPM FlexPack papers are designed for a wide range of lamination processes and offer an unrivaled combination of strength and high-quality print results – especially on flexo printing. Again, the exceptionally thin and heat-sealable 4 g/m2 PE layer guarantees heat-sealability and the correct level of moisture resistance.

“With growing demand for recyclable materials, we decided to focus on lowering the grammage of our coating to develop a unique product. Our goal was to create as thin a coating as possible while also maintaining quality, barrier properties, and heat sealability. By combining this coating with UPM’s papers, we achieved astonishing results that can be easily transferred to full-scale production. This solution is available on many other papers and for numerous end-uses such as meat and cheese wrapping, flexible packaging and even sack production,” said Aleksander Borysow, CEO and chairmen of the board, Unipaco.

This innovative fibre-based salad and herb pot wrapper will be on display at UPM Specialty Papers’ in stand 241, Hall 3A at Fachpack, Nuremburg, Germany, 24 – 26 September and at Pack Expo, Chicago, USA, stand W-21110 — Containers and Materials Pavilion, 3 – 6 November 2024.