Natural Snacks Packed In High Barrier Natureflex™ Film

18 Dec 2010

Innovia Films’ high barrier compostable cellulose-based material, NatureFlex™ NK, has been chosen by organic food wholesaler, Infinity Foods, to wrap its range of snack packs.

Transparent NatureFlex™ NK was launched in 2008 and offers not only compostability, but also a moisture barrier approaching that of co-extruded OPP. This means it has the best moisture barrier of any transparent single layer biopolymer film currently available, which has been achieved through Innovia Films’ unique coating technology.

Based in East Sussex, Infinity Foods has been owned and operated as a workers’ co-operative for over 30 years and is one of the UK’s leading wholesale distributors of organic and natural foods.

Outlining why Infinity Foods chose NatureFlex™ to wrap its snack pack range, Kieran Gorman, stated, “At Infinity Foods we are always looking for ways to limit our environmental impact and carbon footprint. For example, our catalogues are printed on paper from sustainable forests using no chlorine in manufacture and some of our transport fleet runs on bio-diesel. So opting for a film such as NatureFlex™ is a logical progression for us. Our products are available across the UK and Ireland and can be found at specialist retailers across Europe and as far a field as Asia. We are currently only packing our new snack packs in NatureFlex™ but are looking to start using the film across the whole range.”

For the creation of the pack design, Infinity Foods collaborated with packaging consultant, Andy Skinner of Aboxhigh, who said: “Having supplied Infinity Foods for over 15 years and being fully aware of the company’s ethos on the environment, NatureFlex™ has filled the void we have been waiting for. NatureFlex™ is one of the most exciting products I have been involved in within my 35 years experience in the packaging industry. The high visual shelf appeal of the packs, coupled with sustainability and reduction in carbon footprint fulfills all the criteria that Infinity Foods require.”

The resulting pack has helped to re-brand the range of handy size snack products including Organic Milk Chocolate Buttons, Organic High Energy Trail Mix and Hot Chilli Cashew Nuts. The NatureFlex™ NK used in this application is 45µm thick and is flexo printed by Modern Packaging.

NatureFlex™ was an obvious solution for the packaging in this application as the film begins life as a natural product – wood – and breaks down at the end of its lifecycle in a home compost bin (or industrial compost environment) within a matter of weeks. It also offers advantages for packing and converting such as inherent deadfold and anti-static properties, high gloss and transparency, resistance to grease and oil, good barrier to gases and aromas, print receptive surface and a wide heat-seal range.

NatureFlex™ films are certified to meet both the European EN13432 and American ASTM D6400 standards for compostable packaging. The wood-pulp is sourced from managed plantations from referenced suppliers operating Good Forestry principals (FSC or equivalent). NatureFlex™ films typically have a renewable biobased content of some 95% by weight of material.

Source: Infinity Foods