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Two discrete layers of EVOH help deliver three-year shelf life

One barrier layer of this award-winning pack is introduced in the coinjection molding process, while the second is in the in-mold label that’s added during coinjection.

Pw 59454 Bornholmsbeauty

In the Baltic Sea about 100 miles southeast of Copenhagen sits the 227-square-mile island of Bornholm. Called Denmark’s “sunshine island,” it’s famous for its white beaches and round churches. On its east coast is a town called Nexoe, home to Bornholms A/S, a firm that has been producing and developing canned seafood products since 1915.

Now Bornholms is pioneering a whole new container that isn’t a “can” at all—even though it behaves a lot like one. It’s a coinjection-molded container with one oxygen barrier layer coinjected into its sidewall and a second oxygen barrier layer in the coextruded in-mold label that is applied during the coinjection molding process. The award-winning container is made by RPC Superfos in four formats:
• 200-g rectangular for cod roe or other spreadable fish products
• 200-g round for mussels or shrimp
• 400-g round for mussels or fiskeboller (fish dumplings)
• 600-g rectangular for foodservice or catering accounts

All fish products packaged in this innovative container go through a retort, and ambient shelf life as a result is three years. No wonder the package has been named a winner of both a Scanstar 2013 and a Worldstar Award.

Bornholms’ launch of this breakthrough package is impressive not only from a material composition standpoint. The firm also has invested extensively in automated package handling and packaging equipment as it seeks to replace metal packaging completely at its Nexoe facility, where aluminum cans with a ring pull opening have been in use for some time. A Bornholms plant in Iceland will continue using traditional aluminum packaging for the smoked cod liver that it produces. But it’s bye-bye metal at the Nexoe facility, where two new lines have been installed. On one line, the 200-g round, 400-g round, and 600-g square are all produced, while the other line is dedicated to the 200-g rectangular container.

In each case the container is a five-layer coinjection of PP/tie/EVOH/tie/PP. Benny Elo Nielsen, Executive VP & Technology Director at RPC Superfos, chooses not to identify the precise makeup of the EVOH/PP labels that Superfos applies nor does he identify the label supplier. But he does indicate that the coinjection molding machinery is from BMB (www.bmb-spa.com). Nielsen describes this package as a significant achievement that was about three years in development. “The hardest part was identifying the right polypropylene resin that would withstand the retort for 2 hours at 117 degrees C,” he adds.

Into the filling line
We get a good feel for how sophisticated and automated the Nexoe plant is by focusing on the line that’s dedicated to 200-g rectangular containers for fish roe. The coinjection-molded containers arrive at the Bornholms plant nested in stacks. Operators remove them manually from corrugated shippers and place them on a conveyor line that leads to an eight-nozzle in-line Ilpra volumetric filling/sealing system. (On the other line, a combination scale is used for mussels, shrimp, and fish dumplings.)

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