What are the features of mono lidding films?
These have an all-polyester structure and are available with a high-oxygen barrier. They offer exceptional transparency, with excellent anti-fogging properties, and weld seals to rPET or APET trays.
It is a sustainable material choice for food manufacturers thanks to the entire single polymer pack being designed for recycling in the PET recycling stream.
In summary, key features include:
- Mono structure made of one material type.
- Designed for recyclability.
- High oxygen barrier available.
- Exceptional transparency.
- Excellent anti-fogging.
- Ideal for protecting meat, poultry, and fish
Moving away from polyethylene film solutions
Charles Smithson, Managing Director of KM Packaging, said: "Many manufacturers within the meat and fish industry face the problem of 'How can we move to more mono-material solutions to avoid putting multi-layer trays and films with different plastics combined into the market?' The sustainability of packaging solutions to protect, present, and preserve foodstuffs is a key consideration.
"Our product enables them to switch from ‘hard-to-recycle’ mixed polymer plastics, for example a PET/PE food tray, to a mono-polymer food tray with the same mono-polymer top film to seal to it.
“Offering excellent weld seals to PET trays, K SEAL has exceptional clarity, anti-mist, and an effective barrier, performing in the same way as existing films used by meat and fish packers, while providing a packaging solution that is 100% designed for recycling in the number 1 PET recycling stream.”
Mono lidding films and anti-fog properties
KM mono lidding solutions comes with an anti-fog feature, providing an effective solution to maintaining presentation alongside preservation as they control moisture build up to help keep food products fresher for longer. This is a useful feature in persuading manufacturers to make the move from multi-layer films to mono film for their product.
Many food tray manufacturers are also responding to the demand to move away from multi-layer and laminated materials for food packaging due to the difficulties of separating them for recycling.
CEFLEX mono film initiative
These mono-material initiatives are also aligned to the “5 steps to Build a Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging”, as defined by CEFLEX. The steps include:
- Drive collection of all flexible packaging for sorting and recycling.
- Sort the suitable mono-material fractions so that they are available to be recycled.
- Redesign multi-material flexible packaging to mono-materials with existing recycling streams.
Charles Smithson added: "Our in-house technical team work closely with our customers, tray suppliers, and sealing machinery manufacturers to assess and trial our lidding films and find the right packaging solution for the application.
“We are currently seeing unprecedented interest from meat and fish packers across Europe for mono-material solutions.
“We continue to drive innovation in sustainable solutions and these additions to our K SEAL product range complement our existing mono-material lidding films found in our other core ranges, K PEEL and K FOIL. We are also working on incorporating Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) content into these films ahead of proposed tax legislation.”