Sustainable MAP packaging

Gea pre­sent­ed a new com­bined solu­tion for sus­tain­able food pack­ag­ing at IFFA 2019 in Frank­furt. The new pack­ag­ing law, which came into force in Ger­many on Jan­u­ary 1, 2019, requires sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er recy­cling rates for plas­tic pack­ag­ing and will have far-reach­ing con­se­quences for indus­try. Togeth­er with part­ner com­pa­nies, Gea devel­oped an eco­log­i­cal carton/film com­pos­ite solu­tion, known as Food­Tray. The two com­po­nents, which are assem­bled on a Gea ther­mo­form­ing pack­ag­ing machine, can be eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed lat­er by the con­sumer in a sin­gle motion.

Sup­ply­ing a grow­ing world pop­u­la­tion with fresh food only works with the sup­port of safe and secure pack­ag­ing. The chal­lenge is the con­sump­tion of resources, which is con­stant­ly ris­ing and yet must be min­i­mized. The Ger­man pack­ag­ing law stip­u­lates recy­cling quo­tas which, for exam­ple, requires 63 per­cent for plas­tics by 2022. “The ques­tion is what the pack­ag­ing indus­try can do to meet these require­ments and how it can ulti­mate­ly replace plas­tic,” says Hans-Gün­ter Donges, who is respon­si­ble for over­ar­ch­ing devel­op­ments in process tech­nol­o­gy at Gea.

Bundled know-how for greater efficiency and sustainability

As a result, food man­u­fac­tur­ers are mak­ing chal­leng­ing demands on machine tech­nol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny has offered a proven alter­na­tive to pure plas­tic pack­ag­ing for years with a carton/film com­pos­ite solu­tion, which has now been fur­ther adapt­ed to mar­ket require­ments and guar­an­tees max­i­mum flex­i­bil­i­ty. Ini­tial­ly, the con­cept focused on cre­at­ing a tray from cor­ru­gat­ed board that could also meet the require­ments of mod­ern food pack­ag­ing. Thanks to the coop­er­a­tion with diverse spe­cial­ists from the cor­ru­gat­ed card­board, film and mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing sec­tors, includ­ing the Roba Group, Schur Flex­i­bles Ger­many and Van de Velde Pack­ag­ing, the require­ments could now be met. Food­Tray is a sys­tem pack­ag­ing that com­bines the cri­te­ria of prod­uct claim, hap­tics, safe­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion processes.

Composite packaging solution, yet still separable

Food­Tray is a pack­ag­ing solu­tion made from the basic mate­ri­als: cor­ru­gat­ed card­board and film. Cor­ru­gat­ed card­board is the most wide­ly used pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al world­wide and is made almost entire­ly of nat­ur­al raw or recy­cled mate­r­i­al. The film pro­vides an out­stand­ing bar­ri­er, help­ing extend food shelf life.

The Food­Tray sys­tem con­sists of cor­ru­gat­ed card­board car­ton with film on the inside, com­bin­ing the advan­tages of both card­board and plas­tic. “We’ve reduced film con­tent by up to 70 per­cent,” explains Donges. “At Food­Tray, fos­sil-based raw mate­ri­als are replaced with fibers from renew­able raw mate­ri­als; the recy­cled con­tent is more than 80 per­cent. At the same time, we make no com­pro­mis­es in terms of sta­bil­i­ty. Like­wise, the card­board and film can be eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed and recy­cled by the consumer.”

The film is ther­mo­formed and sealed direct­ly to the inside of the cor­ru­gat­ed card­board box. After this, the cus­tomer­spe­cif­ic pack­ag­ing process can take place. “The invest­ment costs are low and the result is eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing,” sum­ma­rizes Donges. MAP pack­ag­ing heights range from 20 to 60 mm and skin ver­sions up to 20 mm, with cor­ru­gat­ed card­board used on the out­er box.

The brand infor­ma­tion can be print­ed over the entire sur­face, enables high-qual­i­ty prod­uct pre­sen­ta­tion and meets increas­ing prod­uct label­ing demands. Like­wise, com­pa­nies have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate their com­mit­ment to using resources more mind­ful­ly by invest­ing in this sus­tain­able solu­tion. “At our pro­duc­tion site in Wal­lau, Ger­many, we have put a sam­ple sys­tem into oper­a­tion where diverse cus­tomer-spe­cif­ic solu­tions can be test­ed,” con­cludes Donges invitingly.