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Reclosure features dominate

Four FPA winners in the Packaging Excellence category are zippered pouches. A produce pack, a coffee carafe, and a shrink-sleeve label round out the category.

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The results are in from the Flexible Packaging Assn.’s 2001 Packaging Achievement Awards competition. Of the seven winners in the Packaging Excellence category, no less than four have zipper reclosure features. Two are applied in-line by form/fill/seal systems, and two come to their users on premade pouches. (For additional coverage of the FPA awards, see pages 69 and 75.)

The Market Prize Peeled Carrots Bag (1) is one of the premade pouches. A Gold Award winner in the Packaging Excellence category, the bag is made by Pliant (Schaumburg, IL) for Eldorado Farms of Redcliff, Alberta, Canada. It replaces a pillow-shaped bag that had no reclosure feature.

“Our old package was boring and outdated,” says Jim Dalzell of Eldorado Farms. He figured a bag with a slider zipper would better enable the company to compete with larger growers in California. To complete the update, Eldorado redesigned the graphics to enhance product presentation.

Also, in a small gusset below the slider zipper, the film is perforated. Consumers wishing to open the package must break through this perforation, and if the perforation isn’t intact, consumers have clear evidence of tampering.

The zipper on the Eldorado Farms pouch is Pliant’s Relliant Series 200 slider zipper, applied to the 2-mil low-density polyethylene bag material at Pliant during bag making. The bag material also has macro air-vent holes to allow gas exchange to occur at a predetermined rate. This ensures a three- to four-week refrigerated shelf life. Graphics are flexo-printed in six colors.

The new bag represents a significant increase in packaging costs for the small vegetable grower. But Dalzell is confident that his investment is well worth it.

“Customers have reacted very positively,” he says. “They think it’s a wonderful design.” Furthermore, Dalzell feels his firm is now better positioned to compete against the other guys.

“Worst case scenario is that my competition is going to have to make a similar change as well,” he says. “I like to stay ahead of the trends and make people catch up to us, instead of the other way around.”

Powerful promo

The other premade zippered bag to win in the Packaging Excellence category is a 13” x 20” “billboard” pouch (2) used by New York-based Redken as a container for a set of posters promoting the firm’s Color Fusion brand of color crème products. From Specialty Films & Associates (Hebron, KY), the pouch has the impact of a wild new “do.” It also had an impact on FPA judges, who gave it a Silver Award.

The pouch is made of 48-ga metallized polyester that’s adhesive-laminated to 4-mil LDPE. It’s gravure-printed in seven colors plus varnish. The full-coverage graphics help foster maximum brand awareness. SF&A applies the zipper reclosure feature, which is from Minigrip/Zip-Pak (Manteno, IL). Redken fills and seals the pouches by hand.

Buddy Schnapp, Redken senior director for purchasing and marketing services, says the pouch “has a surrealistic look that presents an interesting and unique delivery vehicle.” He feels it contrasts nicely with the flesh-toned models seen on the four posters inside. He adds that the pouch was effective, too. “I’d consider doing this type of program again in the future.”

The power of cheese

Both of the zippered-pouch winners whose reclosure features are applied in-line during packaging are cheese packages, one from Sargento (see packworld.com/go/c005) and the other from Kraft. Both won a Silver Award in the Packaging Excellence category.

Each pack provides easy opening and easy reclosability without sacrificing hermetic seal for the modified-atmosphere-packed product. In each case, there are two areas of technical achievement: the ability of the converter to produce the right film that is easy to open without compromising seal integrity, and the ability to apply the slider feature onto the package while on a f/f/s machine.

At Pack Expo 2000, Sargento Cheese, Plymouth, WI, introduced its Chef Style shredded mozzarella cheese in the first cheese pack (3) to use the Hefty Slide Rite™ slider reclosing feature developed by Pactiv (Lake Forest, IL). While that was the focus of the introduction at the show, Sargento’s pack also features a new removable hood to enclose the slider. The hood permits Sargento to create hermetic seals on the packaging machine, while also offering an easy-open feature, created by converter Curwood’s IntegraScore®.

The third contributor to this package’s commercial viability is Klöckner Bartelt (Sarasota, FL), maker of the machine that Sargento uses to apply the slider and create the pack, then fill, gas flush, and seal it. Key to the project is an in-line assembly that attaches the slider device in registration with the rollstock film.

The process includes PC controls running servo motors. Machine-vision inspection and self-tuning steps also help maximize machine performance to levels of output comparable to “press-to-close” zipper packaging. Specific package materials were not identified, though a shelf life of six months was claimed.

Curwood (Oshkosh, WI) should receive the lion’s share of the credit, says Judy Fischer, Sargento packaging engineer, “because we worked with them for a couple of years to come up with the right film structures and the right combinations of sealants and outer layers to achieve the durability the package needed.” As a person who is responsible for ensuring seal integrity, Fischer says it’s tough to create a package that also displays a propensity to tear.

“We think we’re way ahead of our competitors because of some patents we have pending on the package and on the process,” Fischer says. “And the consumers absolutely love this package.”

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