“Huhtamaki Oyj" which was established in 1920 in Kokkola, Western Finland, has become a world leader in the supply of retortable pouch material. The company was founded by young Heikki Huhtamäki, a village baker's son. His company has today a strong strategic focus on consumer packaging. It has 73 manufacturing and sales units and 16,000 employees in 36 countries. As a packaging company, Huhtamaki has grown through a series of acquisitions, including Sealright (USA, 1998) and Van Leer (Holland, 1999).
Although the company has always kept a low profile, it has posted consistent and solid progress over the years. Even more important, Huhtamaki has successfully pursued a strategic opportunity to lead the industry consolidation in packaging, rather than follow it.
One Huhtamaki's fastest growing business areas over the last 5 years has been Retortable Pouches for all sorts of human food and pet food. This success is no coincidence – it can in fact be considered logical for several reasons. New pouches have the major advantage over “old-fashioned“ tin cans or jars that they present the product in an entirely new way. [Both sides of the pouch can be used to advertise the product and the contents themselves??? (what's the difference?).] The innovative pack design symbolises a new trend and communicates the image of a state-of-the-art product.
Pouches require a much shorter time in autoclave than round metal and glass containers, keeping the taste better. The shelf-life is about one year, more than enough for a branded product designed to sell rather than sit on the shelves. No wonder many leading companies over the world have started filling Huhtamaki made retortable pouches with different moist food products.
Consider tuna pouches: They are considerably more convenient for the consumer than traditional tin cans. They are, first of all, very easy to open by tearing and do not require the use of a tool. They are vacuum-sealed to capture the freshest flavour of the fish. Secondly, the product is generally supplied in single-serve portions, so that portioning is unnecessary, while the product can also be removed easily and is always fresh. Finally, waste isreduced to a minimum, compared to cans.
The great savings of the use of tuna in pouch is in logistics. Often remotely located canneries can eliminate a great deal of energy, weight and transport expenditure. Replacing cans with pouches leads to a huge decrease in packaging material and storage space. The fact that the flexible material for pouches is supplied in reels, and can be easily loaded in a container, has a positive effect on economics too.
Pouches also provide great advantages in the sterilisation process. The tuna itself can in particular be treated more carefully. The ratio of the surface area to the product is much better than with cans. The consequent improvement in heat impact and depth penetration means that the sterilisation parameters can be optimised – with the result that the product is treated more gently. Typical conditions for retort applications are 50 minutes @ 121° C; 30 minutes @ 129°C is also possible with some structures.
The pouches from Huhtamaki are laminated from 4 layers of flexible material, in order to fully satisfy all food protection requirements
The first layer consists of Oriented polyester film (PETP), which is needed as the substrate for reverse printing using inks that are suitable for retort applications. The advantages of using this technology are on the one hand the protection provided to the print motif in the laminate without using special lacquer and on the other hand the extremely glossy print that is achieved due to the high transparency of the PETP film.
To shield the tuna from light a good U.V barrier is required. There are differences in the specifications here. The best and in fact only barrier material used for non-transparent pouches is aluminium foil. This foil still guarantees the best aroma, oxygen, moisture and radiation (UV and VIS light) barrier properties. Retortable SiOx or AlOx coated PETP or nylon films are the most common solutions for transparent pouches that need barriers. They represent an optimum combination of high transparency and excellent barrier properties.
Proper sealing is guaranteed by Special PP (polypropylene) grades, which have the additional advantage that they tear easily. It is also beneficial for the material to be stiff to a certain extent so that the stand-up pouch has the necessary stability.
In order to make the tuna pouch unbreakable and resistant to high pressures a fourth layer is incorporated in the laminate, so that the pack can withstand drop tests (height: 1.5 m). This layer – OPA (oriented polyamide) in most cases – absorbs kinetic energy during deformation of the pouch without being destroyed.
Last but not least: special adhesives have to be used that combine the functionalities of the different layers before and after sterilisation of the tuna. The best results can be achieved here with solvent-based two-component systems.
Tuna pouches made out of flexible material produced by Huhtamaki in Ronsberg, Germany, have all these benefits and tuna - as well as many other foods with similar properties and requirements - can be marketed both safely and attractively in this type of pack.
More information: www.huhtamaki.com