The Number One aim of food manufacturers is to be the Number One choice for retailers and consumers. And, to do so today, they also need packaging that is designed for recyclability with many wanting to offer packaging with a Number One stamp, usually found on the tray base.
The numbers are presented within the three-arrow recycling symbol and, in the case of PET, "1" is much easier for recycling facilities to handle than, say, mixed-plastic "7" which is difficult to recycle and not widely collected.
And KM Packaging can provide the Number One PET lidding film solution … a mono polymer structure made up of one or more layers of the same material.
Mono material packaging
Particularly relevant to the meat, poultry and fish/seafood market, we offer weld seal mono-material lidding films within our K SEAL range. They have an all-polyester structure and are available with a high-oxygen barrier. They also offer exceptional transparency, with excellent anti-fogging properties, and weld seal to rPET or APET trays.
K SEAL is the strongest of out of all our ranges, making it ideal for keeping food products safe during storage and transit before it is ready to be stocked on shelves. In addition to this, when it comes to chilled and frozen foods, the anti-fog feature ensures that in addition to being tamper-proof, a build-up of condensation is prevented and quality of the product is maintained.
Extending shelf-life is plays a pivotal role in the effort to reduce food waste, and anti-fogging is one of many ways that KM Packaging are doing their part to help. By producing K SEAL lidding films that are suitable for perforation, we are combining extended shelf-life with consumer convenience by helping to present products in the best light possible on supermarket shelves.
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.
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 materials 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 plastics, for example a PET/PE food tray, to a mono-material food tray with the same mono-material 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.”
Moving towards recyclability in food packaging
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.
For example, Faerch has introduced its MAPET® II mono packaging. It is designed primarily for manufacturing trays for meat and poultry, has the same properties as multi-layer materials, but is produced from just one substrate, MONO amorphous polyethylene terephthalate or MAPET.
And Quinn Packaging has developed a mono-material tray product branded as Signum.
Mark McKenna, General Manager of Quinn Packaging, said: “Consumers are demanding more sustainable packaging solutions. With Signum, we are offering the market a tray that has a 100% recycled material content and is 100% recyclable back into new food grade trays. This is the ultimate solution for a fully circular economy.”
The supermarkets are also driving ahead with mono-material packaging. For its meat products, Co-op introduced packaging made of one polymer type to help increase recycling at consumer level.
Mono material flexible packaging
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.
What's next for mono material packaging?
With regard to the solutions from KM Packaging, 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 continue to drive innovation in sustainable solutions and these additions to our K SEAL product range compliment 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.
“We are currently seeing unprecedented interest from meat and fish packers across Europe for mono-material solutions.”
Many of those manufacturers currently have the Number 7 stamped on their trays. Our K SEAL mono structure lidding film allows them - and you - to gain the Number One seal of approval with retailers, consumers, and recyclers.