US Flexible Packaging Printing Leads Globally: Composite Structures for Beverages, Coffee, Meat and Frozen Foods

Within the global evolution of flexible packaging technology, the United States remains in the leading group; its food packaging has developed distinctive strengths in structure design, printing processes and packaging formats. In beverage flexible packaging, as environmental regulations tighten, flexible packaging continues to gain momentum, with multiple new structures successfully addressing beverages' demanding freshness-retention requirements.

The US also stands at the forefront in flexible packaging printing technology development, showing particular originality in packaging structures, printing methods and packaging formats for various food products.

Beverage flexible packaging: stricter environmental requirements are making flexible packaging a trend, and new packaging with different structures is successfully meeting beverages' stringent freshness-preservation needs. Printing is done by gravure or flexographic printing, while packaging formats include stand-up pouches and others.

Packaging materials, structures and properties: PET/ALL/PE, suitable for stand-up beverage packs for various juices and other drinks.

It offers very good mechanical properties and is suitable for heat sealing; PET/EVOH/PE is used for stand-up pouches for various juices and other beverages, with good barrier and transparency; PER/ALU/PET/PE has better heat resistance than PER/ALU/PE; PER/ALU/PET/PE suits stand-up pouches for non-concentrated beverages, tea and coffee, and delivers better mechanical performance than ET/ALU/PE (ALU is aluminum foil).

Coffee packaging: coffee is a traditional European product with a long packaging history; today, various composite structures can meet coffee's storage and display requirements.

Printing uses gravure, up to 10 colors; packaging formats are three-side-seal or four-side-seal, used for vacuum or modified atmosphere packaging of granular or powdered products.

Packaging materials, structures and properties: PER/ALU/PE is suitable for vacuum or modified atmosphere pouches; OPP/ALU/PE suits vacuum or MAP pouches and offers excellent mechanical resistance and good processability; PET/M/PE is suitable for vacuum or MAP pouches and provides fairly high barrier when aluminum foil is not used; paper PE/ALU/PE is used for single-pouch vacuum or MAP packaging and is convenient to eat; OPA/ALU/PE suits vacuum or MAP pouches with excellent high barrier and mechanical resistance.

Meat product packaging: meat packaging uses a range of composite materials to satisfy different preservation and packaging-processing conditions. Beyond traditional composites for high-temperature and pasteurization sterilization, new transparent, high-barrier structures are continuously introduced for modified atmosphere and vacuum packaging.

Printing is gravure or flexographic; packaging formats include preformed pouches (such as valve bags for ham and three-side flat-seal pouches for cooked meat) and thermoformed rollstock (used as tray bases and lids); the packaging machine is a thermoforming machine.

Packaging materials, structures and properties: OPA/ALU/PE is pasteurization-suitable for ham packaging pouches; PER/ALU/PET/PE is for cooked ham sterilization pouches; PER/ALU/PET/PP suits semi-finished and cooked ham pouches and can be high-temperature sterilized; PER/ALU/PE is used for sliced meat tray lids and more; PET/EVOH/PE offers high barrier for ham slice vacuum packaging; PET/EVOH/PE offers high barrier for ham vacuum packaging; PA/PE is thermoformable and has very good adhesion to the product, suitable for ham packaging lids; PET/EVOH/PE is thermoformable, stiff and high-barrier, suitable for modified atmosphere packaging.

Frozen food packaging: the most common way to store perishable foods, its packaging must ensure both high freshness retention and effective product display.

Printing uses gravure, up to 10 colors; packaging format is three-side-seal pouches; packaging machines are horizontal and vertical.

Packaging materials, structures and properties: PET/PE is suitable for high-speed fruit packaging; PET/M/PE is a metallized laminated film with good visual impact, suitable for vegetables, jams and fresh meat; PET/PE/M has similar performance to the previous two laminates but better printing results; OPP/PE/M is a metallized laminated film less affected by the environment, suitable for vegetable packaging.

Fresh jam packaging: several modified atmosphere packaging formats are commonly used for such products, and composite structures among them are suitable for heat treatment.

Printing is gravure or flexographic; packaging formats are thermoformed trays and pouches; the packaging machine is vertical.

Packaging materials, structures and properties: PET/PP has good mechanical properties and is pasteurizable, suitable for MAP and pasteurized tray sealing lids, easy to peel; PET/EVOH/PE has high gas barrier, used for tray sealing lids in MAP; PET/EVOH/PE is the same as the previous one but suitable for heat treatment; OPA/PE has very good mechanical properties, suitable for MAP; OPA/PP has high transparency, suitable for heat treatment, MAP and pasteurization.

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