Flexible packaging seminar demonstrates adhesives for food packaging

Food safety, environmental sustainability and energy savings were keynote topics at a recent gathering of flexible packaging suppliers, converters and end-users held concurrently with Exhibition Converflex in Milan, Italy.

Coating and laminating equipment producer Nordmeccanica Group hosted the day-long technical session at their Piacenza, Italy headquarters, which was attended by representatives of global companies on hand for Exhibition Converflex nearby.

The Dow Chemical Company addressed recent advancements related to adhesives performance available with the company’s high-solids solvent-based, water-based and solventless adhesive technologies that, among other achievements, greatly reduce or completely eliminate VOCs related to flexible packaging manufacture.

John Norder, North American commercial director, Packaging and Industrial Adhesives revealed findings from a series of studies conducted by the company and the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) in conjunction with the Battelle Memorial Institute.

"The studies conducted by Battelle show that for food packaging, traditional rigid packaging practices such as canning, rigid canisters, boxes with inner poly bags or even expensive extruded packaging materials that are touted as benign have much lower product weight to packaging weight and much higher landfill discards per weight of product meaning they are less efficient than flexible packaging.”

The studies compared other packaging methods to flexible packaging in order to establish technically sound information that quantifies safety, sustainability and savings contributions across the life cycle of various packaging alternatives.

The results have enabled Dow to develop a list of ‘Smart Solutions’ for food packaging.