Interpack 2026: Futamura showcases cellulose-based materials for personal care packaging
15 May 2026 | Futamura
Andy Sweetman, the Sales and Marketing director at Futamura, highlighted the company’s cellulose-based solutions for cosmetics packaging. Sweetman told us more about how the company uses fibers to produce materials with properties similar to those of plastic.
Hello from Interpack 2026.
I'm here with Andy Sweetman, the sales and marketing director at Futamura.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Pleasure.
Can you tell us a bit about the packaging for cosmetics and cosmetic solutions you're presenting at the show this year?
Sure, so, Futamura is an expert in cellulose technology, and it converts cellulose in different ways.
So from a packaging point of view.
Our main focus in the show currently is Nature Flex, which is a transparent packaging film derived from wood pulp.
It kind of looks like plastic, but it's actually derived from wood pulp, it's paper, transparent paper.
And this is used to replace conventional plastics in the cosmetics area, very widely used for things like overwrapping of boxes or any kind of application where you need direct packing using polypropylene or polyester traditionally.
We are also for the first time exhibiting a new product called Nature Lace, which is a non-woven material again entirely renewable, derived from cellulose, and this is used for a range of applications from wet wipes through in particular to cosmetic face masks for beauty treatments.
Makes sense.
And what consumer or market trends are you responding to with these developments?
Particularly with Nature Lace, what we're seeing is a big move away from plastic-based materials in wet wipe and face masks towards natural solutions, issues around waste management and so on.
And so by using a wood-based material like ours is, you have the benefit of renewability, but also better waste management with those materials and just fitting the whole sustainability drive within the cosmetics sector.
Great.
And how about regulation?
I see that you are compliant.
Can you tell us a bit more about that as as other regulations you're tackling?
So again, although, although our film products, for example, will look like plastic, they are non-plastic materials, so they meet the the SUP SUPD requirements of plastic-free components.
And again, the same thing really with the non, the non-woven, so as long as these materials contain no plastics, which is the case, they, they meet the requirements of SUPD.
I see, and you are compostable, but is that compostable in the home environment or only in factory environment?
Yes, it's both environments, so industrial composting and home composting, and all of our products have all of the certifications to demonstrate that.
That's great.
And is it recyclable in some sort of plastic stream?
No, so we would generally recommend these either go through an organic recycling stream, so composting, for example, but also we're seeing quite a move towards paper materials in a range of packaging applications and where, where, for example, you need to see the product through the pack, even while you're using paper.
Quite often now our film is being used as a window solution so that you have a 100% cellulose solution there.
That's very interesting.
And is there anything else that you would like to highlight?
I think something.
That at the moment is only in the food sector but could be interested for cosmetics going forward is we are just seeing now a technical breakthrough in producing liquid sachets using compostable materials and here our Nature Flex film is critical because it provides the barrier properties that are required.
We work with other biopolymer producers to create that solution.
So if you are thinking about cosmetic sachets, this could be something very interesting going forward as as people move away from using plastics for such type of non-recyclable applications.
Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
