Protecting food in new ways: from plastic to sustainability
number of companies are choosing more environment friendly packaging. Plastic packaging has been used for many years to protect food but now many companies choose paper and board for packaging in order to reduce pollution.
However, plastic offers protective features, which does not appear in paper and board packaging. For instance, plastic is a great barrier, protecting food and prolonging the shelf-life of the food. At the same time plastic is only rarely attacked by the food content. Lastly, plastic can act as a barrier allowing printing on the outside safely. Therefore, eliminating plastic calls for an alternative barrier to take on this protective function.
Solutions to protecting food and packaging
Replacement of plastic packaging by paper-based packaging present several problems, which Resino Printing Inks has developed solutions to:
1. Protecting food content from components in the paper or migration of components from the outside coating or print
To protect the food in the packaging, a selection of both water-based and solvent-based exterior and interior coatings are available. These protective coatings are specially developed for materials with direct food contact.
Similarly, inks can be selected with any desired degree of safety, from inks requiring a coating to protect the print and allowing direct food contact to inks where the nonvolatile components are all natural or food approved ingredients. You can read more in our article about printing on materials with direct food contact.
It is important to match the packaging to the exact use because approvals and safe components differ for different food categories. We are happy to assist in regulatory matters assuring compliance.
2. Protecting the packaging from being attacked by moisture, grease of other components from the food content
Foods are often greasy or moist. Grease and water both attack paper and board, which will cause discoloration or dissolve the packaging.
This can be solved by applying grease resistant or water-repellent coatings, which are available at Resino. In this way, the paper and board packaging will be protected from the grease or moist from food.
