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Food and pharmaceutical/medical packaging always make a strong showing in
the DuPont Awards, and this year was no exception. Among the 19 winners
were nine food and five pharma/medical packages. One of the gold award
winners in the food category, a silicon oxide-coated retortable pouch for
rice, took home the prestigious Diamond Award for being judged most
innovative package of all.
Another gold
award winner in the food category, Dr Pepper/Seven Up’s Raging Cow,
represents a true milestone where packaging in America is concerned. The
14-oz multilayer blown barrier bottle is not the first plastic bottle ever
in this country to be filled aseptically with a low-acid product. That
distinction belongs to Abbott Laboratories’ Ross Products Div. of
Columbus, OH, where Similac infant formula has been filled in 1-qt plastic
bottles on a Bosch system since 1998. But filling speeds at Ross Products
are in the 100/min range. Raging Cow, on the other hand, is filled at
twice that speed, and that’s what makes it a first.
Filling the
Raging Cow bottles for Dallas-based Dr Pepper/Seven Up is Jasper Products
of Joplin, MO. Jasper used Dover Brooks Associates of Chester, NY, as
process authority to have its 2541c application filed, reviewed, and
accepted by the LACF (Low Acid Canned Foods) Div. of the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration before product filled on its Tetra Pak LFA-20 system
could go to market. The application was accepted last November, and Raging
Cow started reaching store shelves in March of this year. A national
rollout is now underway, and apparently the Tetra Pak line at Jasper is
pretty much dedicated to meeting that push.
With a
six-month shelf life at ambient temperatures, Raging Cow is a perfect fit
for the Dr Pepper/ Seven Up distribution network.
“The bottlers
distributing our [carbonated soft drink brands] use trucks that aren’t
refrigerated,” says Kendall Yorn, director of packaging at Dr Pepper/Seven
Up. “Raging Cow fits right in.”
“That
fundamental fact of distribution was a key driver in our search for a
truly shelf-stable format rather than mere extended shelf life
technology,” adds Eric Gold, director of project engineering and
innovation implementation. “With ESL technology, product must be
refrigerated, so we would have needed a whole new supply chain.”
Though
shipped and stored at ambient temperatures, Raging Cow is always
merchandised in a refrigerated format, primarily at convenience stores.
Currently, no multipacks are in the picture. Consumers pay $1.49 for a
14-oz serving.
At Jasper’s
Joplin plant, multilayer extrusionblown bottles are supplied through the
wall by a 12-station Graham Packaging wheel. The 24-g bottle has a
six-layer construction consisting of high-density PE/tie/ethylene vinyl
alcohol/tie/carbon black/HDPE. The carbon black provides protection
against potentially damaging light, while the EVOH keeps oxygen out.
Bottles drop
from the Graham wheel in pairs joined at the neck finish. These pairs are
separated by a trimming machine and then stored in inventory until the
Tetra Pak filler is ready for them.
A linear
machine, the LFA-20 at Jasper Products holds bottles by the neck in a
bottle-transport mechanism that carries bottles through hydrogen peroxide
sterilization, filling, and induction sealing stations. Only a small
chamber needs to be kept under aseptic conditions, so the LFA-20 measures
just 8x10 m (26’x32’).
Also catching
the judge’s attention was the 38-mm flip-top closure on the Raging Cow
bottle. It was supplied by Tetra’s Novembal Div. Applied over the
induction-sealed foil membrane that the Tetra system applies, the
injection-molded HDPE closure has a hinged top that can be flipped open
with one hand. The closure needn’t be removed, either, to peel off the
induction-sealed membrane. The closure also has a tear-away TE band.
Cohesive
sealing
Winning
silver in the food category was Sure-Peel cohesive lidding from Alcoa
Flexible Packaging. Test-marketing of the award-winning material, begun in
September 2001, was for a Musselman’s brand applesauce product, marketed
by Knouse Foods of Peach Glen, PA. Positive results following the test
have led Alcoa to substitute the new technology for the original adhesive
Sure-Peel lidding spec.
In both its
original (adhesive) and its improved (cohesive) versions, Sure-Peel
technology is used for hot-fill or cold-fill aseptic applications that
require high-barrier lidding that can be sealed to PP, PE, or PE
copolymers. The idea is to enhance product accessibility by providing an
easy-to-peel membrane yet also ensure that, before the container reaches
the consumer, seal integrity throughout distribution prevents leakers and
spillage.
In its
original adhesive version, Sure Peel consisted of a primer/1.5-mil
foil/adhesive/1-mil patented film. It was heat-sealed to a single-serve
plastic cup. As consumers opened the container by pulling the lidding off,
the patented film layer in contact with the cup would remain attached to
the cup. The adhesive bond between the patented film layer and the foil
would break, so the foil would peel away and provide access to the
contents.
Alcoa’s
newest generation of Sure-Peel technology uses an extrusion rather than an
adhesive process to mount the patented layer of film to the foil. This
makes it easier to peel the foil from the patented layer, which once again
remains on the cup. But despite the easy-peel characterisic, seal
integrity is still maintained throughout distribution. In fact, because
extrusion-mounting produces a finished lidding material that’s thicker
than the adhesive-mounted version, the added cushion effect during heat
sealing seems to yield even tighter seal integrity than was achieved
before.
In the case
of the Musselman’s container, Alcoa sends cohesive lidding rollstock to
KraftSeal, a converter that prints the material flexographically and then
cuts and stacks individual lids from the roll. These stacks are fed to an
Autoprod system that fills the cups with applesauce and heat seals lids to
cups.
Pete Adelmann
at Knousse Foods says the new lidding material is “very clever. It’s more
forgiving in terms of sealing temperatures and sealing through product
contamination. It’s reduced leakers and it’s easier to peel from the cup.”
Foster
pouches convenience
The
brandname, “Fresh & Easy,” says it all for Foster Farms’ boneless,
skinless chicken portions that are vacuum pouched and bagged for consumer
convenience.
The
refrigerated products in two varieties—breasts or thighs—were tested by
the Livingston, CA, company in 10 stores in Sacramento, CA, in summer
2002. The products were then launched throughout California and into
Oregon and Washington in Spring ’03.
Each bag
contains three individually wrapped pouches using film from Cryovac and
pouched on a Multivac machine installed for this project.
Breasts are
packed two per pouch for a total of six per bag; thighs are packed four
per pouch to total 12 per bag. The random-weight breast bags generally
weigh between 2½ and 3 lb and thighs from 2 to 2½ lb, according to Foster
Farms assistant product manager Lori Pierrou. The preformed bags are
supplied by Pliant with zipper reclosure. The clear pouch and bag
packaging allow consumers to inspect the chicken from all sides.
“It was
important to have packaging that looks and feels fresh versus frozen,”
says marketing product manager Gudjon Olaffson. “Consumers like to take
fresh trayed chicken home, put it in a pouch and freeze it. We thought
we’d do the packaging for them.”
“Individually
wrapped chicken in convenience-size portions is unique,” adds Pierrou.
“It’s easier for consumers to store the bags or the individual pouches in
either their refrigerator or freezer.”
While the
packaging appeals to a wide variety of people, Pierrou says it’s
especially appealing to smaller households of one or two people. The
vacuum-sealed pouches prevent freezer burn, she adds.
At the
Livingston plant, the hand trimmed and prewashed pieces are placed
manually into the pockets of a Multivac Model R530 horizontal form/seal
machine custom-modified for these products. The use of special forming
molds reduces channeling or crinkling in the packs, which results in what
Olaffson calls “a skin-pack look from a rollstock machine.”
Forming and
sealing films that run on the Multivac machine are supplied by Cryovac.
Complete specs are unavailable, but Cryovac does say that the 4-mil
coextruded “T-series” bottom forming film has a proprietary sealant. The
2.7-mil laminated sealing film also has a proprietary sealant. The
compatible sealants permit sealing through natural juices. Together, the
films provide a controlled oxygen transmission rate suitable for fresh
poultry. Each pouch is ink-jet coded with killdate information, the parts
identification if breasts or thighs, and an arrow that points to indicate
where to open the pouch.
The sealed
pouches are manually packed into the wicketed, vented preformed bags from
Pliant. The bag film is a 3.25-mil linear low-density polyethylene/LDPE
blend that’s flexo-printed in eight colors. The bags are sealed using a
BaggerBoss semi-automatic sealer from the SIG Doboy Inc.
Product shelf
life is guaranteed 10 days for retailers. Foster affixes a “Use or Freeze
By” date on a standard, weight-price sticker.
Consumer
reaction has been “great,” says Pierrou. “We receive a lot of feedback on
our consumer line about how they love the product.” The DuPont Awards
judges took to it too, giving it silver in the food category.
Two more
winners in food
Rounding out
the winners in the food category are ArmorX™ ABP® bone-in shrink bags
(opposite page) from Curwood and gravure-printed food-packaging film from
Fuji Tokushu Shigyo.
The Curwood
film, a silver award winner, is a two-layer lamination of two blown
coextrusions. One coextrusion is a biaxially oriented polyethylene
copolymer blend. The other coextrusion, which is also biaxially oriented,
has the following general structure: PE copolymer blend
layers/polyvinylidene chloride/PE copolymer blend layers. Used for shrink
packing of bone-in meat cuts, ArmorX ABP is said to provide better
protection from punctures, better shrink, and greater clarity than
currently available alternatives.
According to
Curwood, this film is made by offset continuous lamination. This process
leaves a border on one side of the finished lamination where the material
is thinner, which in turn makes it easy to heat seal this material, says
Curwood.
The
gravure-printed food packaging films from Fuji Tokushu Shigyo (left) won a
gold award. They impressed DuPont judges with their innovative use of
aqueous inks and solventless laminations. Both are environmentally
friendly because they eliminate the need for solvent recovery/disposal and
possible solvent retention odors. A polarized resin such as DuPont Nucrel®
resin facilitates the bonding of the aqueous inks to the film’s surface.
Pouch fills
functional needs
Among the
pharma/medical packages to win a DuPont Award was a cholangiogram catheter
package from Taut Inc., Geneva, IL. It won a silver in the non-food
category for Rollprint Packaging Products.
The pack
consists of top and bottom webs that are heat-sealed together. The top web
is an uncoated DuPont Tyvek 1073B that’s flexo-printed in one color.
The clear
bottom web is 48-ga polyester with a
2-mil
coextrusion coating of Rollprint’s Allegro® T peelable sealant.
Before the
change, made in March 2002, Taut’s pouch had a top web of coated Tyvek
heat-sealed to a bottom web of 48-ga polyester/2-mil PE copolymer.
Rollprint’s
executive vice president Dhuanne Dodrill says the switch to uncoated Tyvek
represents “significant” cost savings, though Taut vice president of
sales, Raul Brizula, could not confirm that. But he could point to a
number of improvements the new pouch structure brings.
The first is
the improved processing window of heat-sealing, Brizula says, which is
done on a continuous-motion machine.
“We’re
experiencing greater tolerance on the sealing machinery,” he explains.
“This package isn’t as sensitive to producing a ‘perfect’ heat level.
That’s taken some of the burden off the operators, and it’s given us an
additional comfort level.”
Another plus
has been the functionality—and appearance—of the packaging, particularly
in the seal area.
“We have very
low tolerance for fiber tear,” says Brizula. “We don’t like to see
particulate matter on the device or in the operating room. This package
has such a nice clean uniform seal, and so it’s more appealing to end
users.”
He says the
seal peels cleanly and creates a visible white mark as confirmation of the
package integrity that provides assurance to users.
Brizula also
points to the new structure’s less yellowing nature as “very significant.
Uncoated Tyvek does not tend to yellow nearly as much as coated Tyvek,
especially following sterilization. If the product is stored for 12 to 18
months, yellowing appears when coated Tyvek is involved. When operating
room staff see yellowing, they think it may be expired or old product and
they maybe have a concern. That has been minimized if not eliminated with
the change.”
The product
is sold in the United States and overseas. Taut also switched to the same
packaging for a capillary drain device at the same time.
“All changes
are bad because they cause disruptions,” says Brizula, “but this one has
been relatively painless and nice. It was an easy decision.” |
