August | 2020 | Clamshell Packaging Manufacturer

Main functions of food packaging

Food packaging is an integral part of food commodities. Food packaging and food packaging boxes protect food and prevent biological, chemical, and physical damage from external factors when the food leaves the factory to the consumer. It can also have the function of maintaining the stable quality of the food itself. Convenience food is the first to show the appearance of food, attract the image of consumption, and has value other than material cost. China Printing Cloud Platform provides one-stop online solutions from food packaging design to food packaging printing, and combines different product requirements to provide economical, hygienic and fast food packaging printing solutions.

Many companies need to print decorative patterns, patterns or text on the packaging to make their products more attractive or descriptive. Good packaging can make products establish a high-quality image, improve product competitiveness, and promote product sales. It can effectively increase the propaganda of the company and increase its influence.

Food has always been preferred by people, and food packaging is more important.

1. Protect food and extend the shelf life of food

(1) Protecting the appearance quality of food produces certain economic benefits

During the entire circulation process, food has to go through handling, loading and unloading, transportation and storage, which can easily cause damage to the appearance of the food. After the food is packaged inside and outside, the food can be well protected to avoid damage.

(2) Protect the original quality of food and extend the shelf life of food

The quality of food will change and deteriorate during the entire circulation process.

The food itself has certain nutrients and moisture, which are the basic conditions for the production and reproduction of bacteria, mold, yeast, etc. When the food is stored at a temperature suitable for their reproduction, it will cause the food to spoil. If the food is packaged aseptically or processed by high temperature sterilization and refrigeration after packaging, it will prevent the occurrence of food spoilage and extend the shelf life of the food.

At the same time, the food itself has a certain amount of water. When the content of these water changes, it will cause the change or deterioration of the food flavor. If the corresponding moisture-proof packaging technology is adopted, the above phenomenon can be prevented and the shelf life of food can be effectively extended.

Moreover, when food is in circulation, when it is directly irradiated by sunlight and light, and at high temperatures, it is easy to cause food to oxidize, change color, and change flavor. For example, use the corresponding vacuum packaging, inflatable packaging and other technologies and corresponding packaging. Material. It can also effectively extend the shelf life of packaged food.

2 Packaged food is convenient for circulation

Some packaging is a container for food circulation. Such as bottled alcohol, beverages, canned food, milk powder in the field, etc., these packaged bottles, cans and bags are not only packaging containers, but also transfer tools for food circulation and sales. It brings great convenience to food circulation

3. Increase the variety of convenience foods that are convenient for consumers and have local flavors. They can only be circulated after being packaged. The exchange of famous and high-quality foods from all over the country will increase people’s daily food types.

Furthermore, fresh foods such as quick-frozen dumplings, packaged meals and preservation techniques can be convenient for people to eat

4. Convenient steaming food to prevent food contamination, using special packaging technology

When the food is in circulation, it must be in contact with the container and human hands, which is easy to cause the food to be contaminated. The packaged food can avoid this phenomenon, which is beneficial to the health of consumers.

5. Promote the rationality and planning of food circulation

Some fresh foods are perishable and difficult to transport, such as fruits and aquatic products. Various cans are made in the place of production, which can reduce waste, reduce transportation costs, and promote the rationality and planning of food circulation. .

6. Promote food competition and increase food sales

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Basic classification of food packaging

Food packaging can be divided into metal, glass, paper, plastic, composite materials, etc. according to packaging materials, and can be divided into cans, bottles, bags, bags, rolls, boxes, boxes, etc. according to packaging types, and can be divided into cans according to packaging methods , Bottling, encapsulation, bagging, wrapping and filling, integration, sealing, labeling, coding, etc.; can be divided into inner packaging, secondary packaging, tertiary packaging, etc. according to the product level.

Due to more attention to food safety and higher requirements, some countries have strengthened the regulatory management of food packaging. From the implementation of nutrition standards and regulations, indirect additive regulations, etc., to the promotion of degradable packaging, electronic scanning of bar codes, etc., all of them are promoting the new development of food packaging.

There are many ways to classify food packaging. For example, it can be divided into: moisture-proof packaging, waterproof packaging, mildew-proof packaging, fresh-keeping packaging, quick-frozen packaging, breathable packaging, microwave sterilization packaging, aseptic packaging, inflatable packaging, vacuum packaging, deoxidizing packaging, blister packaging, skin packaging, Stretch packaging, retort bag packaging, etc. The above-mentioned various packages are all made of different composite materials, and their packaging characteristics correspond to the requirements of different foods, which can effectively protect the quality of the food.

How clamshells became recyclable and recycled

What is The sustainable manufacturer? A 100% zero-waste-to-landfill facility? A company that consumes only renewable resources?

How about a firm that isn’t dictated by the axiom that the only responsibility a business has is to reward its shareholders, but perhaps, motivated to do well by its customers and the planet?

As we have heard countless times today, there is no silver bullet when it comes to sustainability; what works for one may not work for another. Success is dependent on context. But I believe if you just try to do something, that something could turn into an authentic silver bullet.

For the last 5 years, I have worked to make plastic clamshell packaging recyclable and recycled. And in 5 years, these containers went from being landfilled in 2009, to collected for recycling in 2013, to actually recycled in 2015.

While PET plastic water bottles are “recyclable,” PET plastic clamshells are not.

I began a blog that narrated my efforts to understand why plastic clamshells were not recyclable and what I could do to change that. Titled “Recycling in America,” it includes all my emails with Waste Management, the Integrated Board of Solid Waste Management, the US EPA, the Society of Plastics Industry, and pretty much everyone in between who had some type of knowledge on recycling.

After several months of learning about plastics recycling, we were advised to send our PET clamshells to our local recycler to see if the Near-Infrared automated sorting system would sort our containers with the PET bottles.

A week later I got a call from the recycler: he had tested our clamshells; they were sorted with PET bottles. Hurray! This means that PET clamshells could be sorted with PET bottles via NIR Systems. This means that plastic clamshells are not not recycled because issues with automated sortation.

A couple days later I got a call from the Sustainable Packaging Manager at Walmart Canada. She had found my blog while researching clamshell container recycling and wanted me to join a working group on PET recycling. Canada has extended producer responsibility legislation on the books, which means that packaging “producers” are left with the bill of waste management, a tax usually bestowed upon tax payers. It is therefore in Walmart Canada’s interest to invest in the recovery of the packaging it puts on shelf so as to reduce the “fee” associated with hard to recycle packaging. So I complied all of the independent research I had done the last 6 months and went to Canada. And it was awesome. I got to work with PET stakeholders up and down the supply chain on identifying the barriers to PET clamshell recycling. I learned a lot.

I returned home and wrote a report on clamshell recycling and titled it, “The Truth about Blister & Clamshell Recycling in America with Suggestions for the Industry.” Therein I laid out what I believed to be the obstacles to clamshell recycling and steps the industry could take to overcome these obstacles.

Packaging that is easy to collect, transport, sort, clean, bale and resell/remanufacture enjoys the likelihood of being recycled because the cost of recycling is offset by the value of the recyclate. Styrofoam is not recycled, for example, because it costs too much to ship what is essentially comprised of 98% air and 2% resin. Curb side collection isn’t usually offered in rural communities, as the cost of door-to-door collection too expensive; these communities generally rely on drop off locations for recyclables, consolidating the source of collection to allow for more appealing logistics.

There also has to be “enough” of a certain packaging/material type generated in the waste stream to justify the collection and recycling of it. That is why PET bottles are popular for recycling— because so many bottles of like material and design are manufactured each year and available for recycling.

To make the case for recycling PET clamshells with PET bottles, we have to understand the supply and demand realities for virgin and recycled PET.

NAPCOR, the PET industry’s trade group, says the capacity for PET recycling outweighs the supply, 3:1. This means that there are not enough PET bottles being collected post-consumer to meet the demand of the recyclers.

NAPCOR’s 2011 report reads, “The US now has capacity to process more PC PET packaging than the amount collected. That means that in 2012, even if no PET bales are exported these reclamation assets will be short of material. Investments in these assets are substantial and arguably the most sophisticated in the world…without reclamation plants there is no PET recycling, and these new plants are essential if respectable PET recycling rates are to be achieved. But without additional collection efforts or new streams of material, the increased capacity will only serve to drive prices to unsustainable levels” (NAPCOR, 2011).

Recycling PET clamshells, I argue in my Report, would add to the amount of PET available to recyclers, balancing the supply/demand imbalance that characterizes the market.

If we are going to recycle PET clamshells with PET bottles to increase the material available for recyclers, we have to confirm that clamshells wont be a contaminate to the PET bottle stream. The PET bottle industry has invested a lot of time and money into recycling and developed sophisticated collection, sortation, baling, and reprocessing methods that work to meet their buyers’ specs. Adding PET clamshells to the bottle-recycling stream must therefore ensure that the quality of the recyclate isn’t compromised.

I had heard that one of the obstacles to recycling clamshells with bottles is that the two packages have different intrinsic viscosities; this can be understood as a material’s integrity and ability to withstand stress. Plastic bottles holding carbonated beverages, for instance, need to have a high IV to allow the bottle to be handled and not break, whereas plastic thermoforms holding your takeout don’t need to have as high of structural performance properties. Every time plastic goes through a conversion process like recycling, IV is sheered off, compromising the “give” of the container.

Another concern with recycling PET clamshells with bottles is labels and adhesives used on clamshell containers can be more coercive than those used on bottles, gunking up the cleaning process.

As illustrated in this Report, the recycling of clamshells depends on the ability to collect, transport, sort, clean, bale, and remanufacture material into new products in an economically competitive way. Issues such as adequate supply and demand and investment in sorting and reprocessing technologies need to be addressed if we as an industry plan on the inclusion of clamshells in our recycling infrastructure.