The resulting package is now a strong seller for Daltons and Price Club (now known as Price Costco). The package also nabbed one of two 1994 Golden Mummy awards presented by the Films Div. of Mobil Chemical Co. (Pittsford, NY). The annual award goes to packagers who are innovative in their use of oriented polypropylene in a flexible packaging application. Daltons receives preformed bags from converter Maine Poly (Greene, MA) and fills them through the open bottoms. The bag material is an adhesive lamination of Mobil's 84-ga BICOR® AOH film and 2.5-mil linear low-density polyethylene blend. Maine first reverse-prints the BICOR material in eight colors on a flexo press. It then laminates the two substrates, forms three-side-sealed bags and applies zippers supplied by AMI/RecPro (Atlanta, GA). Bags are sent to Daltons on wickets. The 750-g and 1-kg bags are backflushed with nitrogen to help give them a 10-month shelf life. Thus, the oxygen barrier afforded by the bag structure is critical. Most of the barrier comes by way of the Mobil material, which incorporates polyvinyl alcohol that gives it a gas transmission rate of less than .1 cc of oxygen per 100 sq in. per 24 hr. The other Golden Mummy winner for 1994 was a package for Hip Hop Hares, converted by C.P. Converters (York, PA) for Richardson Brands of South Miami, FL.
