TF-BOPE film for frozen food packaging

Sabic, a glob­al leader in diver­si­fied chem­i­cals, has launched a sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing solu­tion for frozen food which com­bines a new poly­eth­yl­ene (PE) grade with inno­v­a­tive film pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Com­pared to con­ven­tion­al blow PE film solu­tions, it offers sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er through­put and also has poten­tial for down-gaug­ing, mak­ing it attrac­tive from both a com­mer­cial and sus­tain­abil­i­ty standpoint.

The solu­tion is based on a mono web TF-BOPE film struc­ture which has a thick­ness of only 20 microm­e­ters – an unprece­dent­ed ben­e­fit in this mar­ket. This thin gauge pro­vides a poten­tial pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al reduc­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 35–50% com­pared to incum­bent blown PE film. The reduced thick­ness of the pack­ag­ing solu­tion min­i­mizes envi­ron­men­tal impact and sup­ports brand own­ers and retail­ers who are aim­ing to reduce their pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion. The new pack­ag­ing solu­tion is also 100% recy­clable and fits mono-PE recy­cling streams.

This inno­v­a­tive pack­ag­ing solu­tion for frozen food is the result of Sabic’s close col­lab­o­ra­tion with film suppliers/extruders Ticino­plast and Plastchim‑T, as well as pack­ag­ing machine man­u­fac­tur­er Syn­te­gon Technology.

Stephan Eltink, Sabic’s Busi­ness Direc­tor for PE in Europe, said: “At Sabic, we focus on deliv­er­ing sus­tain­able solu­tions and work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with our cus­tomers to help them achieve their ambi­tions and solve key indus­try chal­lenges. By work­ing close­ly with Ticino­plast, Plastchim‑T and Syn­te­gon, and by lever­ag­ing our inno­va­tion togeth­er, we have been able to intro­duce a new solu­tion to the mar­ket that allows for more sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing with­out any com­pro­mise on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and con­sumer convenience.”

Pierre Hamelink, Syntegon’s Direc­tor of Busi­ness, Mar­ket and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Strat­e­gy, said: “This inno­v­a­tive pack­ag­ing solu­tion demon­strates the true val­ue of col­lab­o­ra­tion. Stake­hold­ers through­out the sup­ply chain have had to work togeth­er to bring this to life: sus­tain­abil­i­ty can­not be achieved sin­gle-hand­ed­ly.” He added: “Our research and devel­op­ment efforts are dri­ven by our mis­sion to deliv­er sus­tain­abil­i­ty – with­out com­pro­mise. Our new PHS 2.0 seal­ing tech­nol­o­gy can process thin­ner films whilst offer­ing the same lev­el of seal­ing qual­i­ty, prod­uct pro­tec­tion and pro­cess­ing speed as con­ven­tion­al seal­ing technologies.

When replac­ing com­pos­ite pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als on new and exist­ing Syn­te­gon machines with films made of Sabic’s BOPE, brand own­ers ben­e­fit from even more mate­r­i­al and cost savings.”

TF-BOPE film made of Sabic^® LLDPE BX202 mate­r­i­al offers tear direc­tion, low tear strength and pro­vides an easy uni­di­rec­tion­al open­ing. Com­pared to con­ven­tion­al solu­tions, it offers much bet­ter vis­i­bil­i­ty of pack­aged prod­ucts due to high­er light trans­mis­sion and low­er haze. Mean­while the high gloss deliv­ers first-class design and aesthetics.

The 20 microm­e­ter thin film was suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed on Syntegon’s ver­ti­cal form, fill and seal machines, which fea­ture the new­ly-devel­oped PHS 2.0 seal­ing tech­nol­o­gy. This tech­nol­o­gy reduces the amount of clamped film by 25% and increas­es pack­ag­ing speed by up to 25%. The thin TF-BOPE film also requires less cool­ing time which increas­es pack­ag­ing speed even more. Dur­ing the eval­u­a­tions, a con­stant speed of 130 bags per minute was achieved.

For pack­ers, TF-BOPE film deliv­ers a robust seal­ing per­for­mance and increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty result­ing from improved pack­ag­ing speed. The thin gauge results in increased film roll effi­cien­cy which reduces logis­tic han­dling, stor­age space and trans­port costs.

For con­vert­ers and brand own­ers, Sabic’s TF-BOPE film mate­r­i­al offers a wide range of ben­e­fits that include good print­abil­i­ty, cost-sav­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, high­er yield, less con­sump­tion of plas­tic mate­ri­als and low­er pack­ag­ing tax­es due to reduced mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion. It fur­ther reduces the pack­age weight to prod­uct weight ratio, result­ing in a more opti­mized pack­ag­ing design.

The TF-BOPE film is based on Sabic LLDPE BX202 grade, which is avail­able glob­al­ly. TF-BOPE stands for Ten­ter Frame Biax­i­al­ly Ori­ent­ed Poly­eth­yl­ene. This is a PE grade that can run in ten­ter frame machines tra­di­tion­al­ly used to make Biax­i­al­ly Ori­ent­ed Polypropy­lene (BOPP) film. TF-BOPE has the poten­tial to be used in new appli­ca­tions and mar­kets which sup­port the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my, where mono mate­r­i­al solu­tions are required to enhance recy­cla­bil­i­ty. TF-BOPE can replace mul­ti mate­r­i­al lam­i­nates into a mono-PE structure.

Sabic TF-BOPE poly­mer is part of the “Design for Recy­cla­bil­i­ty” under TRUCIRCLE^™ solu­tions and sup­ports easy and full recy­cla­bil­i­ty through enabling mono-PE mate­r­i­al struc­ture in mul­ti­lay­er ten­ter frame of flex­i­ble pack­ag­ing, aim­ing to min­i­mize waste. This new prod­uct can be also avail­able as cer­ti­fied cir­cu­lar poly­mer from the company’s TRUCIRCLE port­fo­lio. At Sabic, the TRUCIRCLE ini­tia­tive encom­pass­es the company’s cir­cu­lar mate­ri­als and tech­nolo­gies, which include cer­ti­fied cir­cu­lar poly­mers from the chem­i­cal recy­cling of mixed plas­tic waste and cer­ti­fied renew­able poly­mers based on bio-based renew­able feedstock.