Companies Collaborate To Launch Anti-Microbial Packaging Film

Parkside Flexibles has collaborated with surface protection suppliers, Touchguard, to launch a new packaging system incorporating an antibacterial coating. The new development enables brands to protect consumers against potentially harmful bacteria.

By incorporating the new Touchguard over lacquer, the anti-bacterial design delivers a surface finish that inhibits the growth of bacteria. Utilizing a silver-based technology, the coating can be applied as a water or solvent-based finish and is suited for a range of packaging formats including flow wraps, lidding films and pouches.

New Product Development Technical Manager at Parkside, Mark Shaw, said, “The current pandemic has had a significant impact on the way we view in every aspect of life hygiene, and we must be all doing what we can to protect ourselves.”

At Parkside, the Touchguard technology is applied during the print finishing process as a component of a specially formulated solvent-based over lacquer. As a result, it adds only pence per square meter to the packaging production process, enabling brands to keep print costs down. Notably, Touchguard is also proven to reduce the growth of MRSA by 99.97% and E. coli by 99.96%, making especially suited to food packaging.

Mark Shaw added, “This latest packaging development from Parkside and Touchguard in no way replaces the need for careful hand washing,” but noted it’s an innovation that can “inhibit the spread of cross-contamination on packaging substrates that are not usually subject to any cleaning or infection control procedures.”

The coated packaging system has been thoroughly tested in lab applications and is seen to be stable. The coating has already been independently assessed and certified for anti-bacterial performance to ISO 22196:2011.