Organic Film for Organic Pasta
25 January 2008 10:45
Birkel, a leading German manufacturer of brand name products, will now be the first to offer its organic pasta in organic film. Just as new is that the film will be printed in a high-quality 8-coloured flexoprint — by the packaging specialist Kobusch-Sengewald. The plastic fabricator has also recently started to offer bio-degradable and compostable film made of an extruded PLA (polylactide)-blend.
THE ORGANIC BOOM
Subsequent to a survey carried out by the European Bioplastics association amongst its members, the branch recorded a strong surge in demand in 2006 of, for the most part, more than 100% compared to 2005; the companies reckon with a continued strong growth for 2007. Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and particularly the UK have already established organic packaging on the market; Germany is still in the early stages of this development. All the same the consumption of this packaging made of organic plastics rose by more than 30% compared to the previous year in this country.
"As a branded company we cannot ignore this development," explains Thomas Schmid, Product Manager at Birkel and also responsible for Birkel's Organic segment. The organic pasta has been available on the national market since March 2007 — in fact it has been consistently packaged in a compostable film made of renewable raw materials since then. Birkel's integrated overall concept, which is new to the German market, is their way of preserving resources and offering their customers an additional specific usefulness: besides the high-quality product a good conscience by buying the "Allround-Organic-Pasta" and contributing to environmental protection.
The organic packaging film used is made of renewable raw materials and based on cellulose from a supervised cultivation, and therefore certified according to the European standard (EN 13432:2000) and the American standard (ASTM D6400-99) for composting. The film is printed in a specially treated high-quality eight-coloured-flexoprint by Kobusch-Sengewald, the specialist for plastic packaging. The art is to print the non-laminated monofilm in such a way that the colours develop a good adhesion to the film. Aside from this the total of 5% non-compostable materials on the whole of the packaging must not be exceeded. The label and its print colours must also be calculated in this total percentage. Given that this packaging is equivalent to the test standard, it may be tagged with the protected Keimling logo that distinguishes it as compostable.
Moreover, Kobusch-Sengewald has reacted to an increase in demand and launched an extruded film made of a PLA-blend within its product range which is biodegradable and compostable. The final certification will, however, still take some time. At the moment, this film is available in white, coloured or opaque. The transparent version is under way.
For more information on this company:
Kobusch-Sengewald - Flexible Food Packaging - Films, Pouches and Labels
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