Rapid Action Packaging (RAP) has launched an eye-catching paper/film pack for products like baguettes, tortillas and speciality breads manufacturable entirely from compostable, recyclable materials and, depending on the pack type, able to run down standard or modified Ilapak flowwrappers.
Made largely of paper, but with film windows available for optimal product visibility, the Softpack is said, alongside its eco-friendly credentials, to provide a larger surface area for graphics and messages than “traditional” film flowwrap packs with labels. The packs are supplied on-the-reel and the windows can be made from a variety of plastics, from PLA to EVOH/PE combinations.
During development RAP worked with Ilapak, whose Swiss r&d facility successfully engineered existing flowwrapping equipment to enable the packs to run down its flowwrap machines.
To meet significant anticipated UK demand, RAP hopes, with self-adhesive label manufacturer Paragon Labels, to create a joint UK manufacturing facility, which will complement its own recently extended factory in Donegal.
Julian Money, RAP founder and md, says: “Working with Paragon we have modified a Mark Andy multi-colour flexo press to enable us print the paperboard material as required, incorporate the cuts and creases, including the apertures for film windows, and then laminate the cut paper to the film. Although quite complex in execution, the idea is so straightforward we wonder why noone else had thought of it.”
Money says of the two different Softpack variants currently available, the fin-seal end version should run successfully down existing Ilapak Delta flowwrappers, while customers wanting gable-end Softpacks will need their flowwrappers modified.
He adds: “We are undertaking trials with a baguette producer, a cheese company and a cereal bar producer, and talking to all the major UK supermarkets. Enthusiasm has been spurred hugely by the big grocery retailers' and brand owners' growing determination to use more environmentally-friendly materials.”
The new Softpack, “ideal” for products such as baguettes, tortillas and speciality breads, can be made from “100% compostable” materials RAP_SP_PACK Contact details
Rapid Action Packaging
T: +44 (0)20 8392 8323
