German company Folienprint uses the latest technologies in printing, including the HP Indigo 20000 and Esko’s HD Flexo.
Sustainability plays an important role in the company’s strategy, which employs the latest pre-press developments to create partnerships with material suppliers and to use new water printing plates.
One key supplier is Klöckner Pentaplast, which has an extensive rigid and flexible films portfolio that plays a major role in protecting product and brand integrity in the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, financial card, flooring and industrial sectors.
The desire for longer product shelf-life and support for recycling efforts are two important consumer trends. Packaging goes a long way towards meeting these desires, particularly packaging that is labelled with advanced materials.
To help meet the demand for longer shelf-life, Folienprint uses Klöckner’s cost-effective Pentalabel® eklipse™ shrink-label film. Its light transmission rate is under 1.00%, which protects the product and its high-shrink percentages enable freer design with contoured bottles, while eliminating the need for high-barrier primary containers.
Low-light transmission is vital because ambient light is not a friend to dairy products, juice, coconut milk and other beverages. Even display case lighting can begin to degrade photo-sensitive vitamins and proteins. Over time, light exposure initiates oxidation reactions that can reduce shelf-life and create ‘off flavours’, leading to a negative consumer experience.
Recyclers strive to attain high-PET container recycling yields, but they face a difficult obstacle; shrink sleeves that cannot adequately be removed from PET flakes can contaminate recovered products and lower recycling yields.
Klöckner’s Pentalabel® ClearFloat™ is also used by Folienprint. With a density under 0.95%, ClearFloat shrink labels rise to the surface in a recycling float/sink separation tank. These films were engineered to meet guidelines set by the European PET Bottle Platform and the Association of Plastic Recyclers.
The technical properties of the new family of films create opportunities for increased recycling rates and graphics that build brand appeal.