Monomaterial tortilla wraps

As part of Cov­eris’ No Waste mis­sion, the com­pa­ny has launched a mono­ma­te­r­i­al pack­ag­ing solu­tion for tor­tilla wraps. MonoFlex Ther­mo­form film pack­ag­ing replaces non-recy­clable, mixed mate­r­i­al ther­mo­form­ing sub­strates, while main­tain­ing a long shelf life.

The project result­ed from close coop­er­a­tion with a tor­tilla wrap man­u­fac­tur­er, seek­ing a more sus­tain­able alter­na­tive to the pre­vi­ous­ly used PA/PE struc­ture. The pri­ma­ry chal­lenge was iden­ti­fy­ing a recy­clable mate­r­i­al while ensur­ing a min­i­mum six-month shelf life for a tor­tilla with low quan­ti­ty of preser­v­a­tives. Fol­low­ing exten­sive per­for­mance test­ing at Cov­eris’ Food Sci­ence Lab in Gains­bor­ough, UK, the team opt­ed for a mono­ma­te­r­i­al based top and base ther­mo­form­ing film. This mate­r­i­al suc­cess­ful­ly pro­tect­ed the sen­si­tive tor­tilla wraps against mould through­out the required test­ing peri­od while enabling recy­cling in the same waste stream.

The pack­ag­ing solu­tion offers sev­er­al key ben­e­fits, includ­ing advanced bar­ri­er prop­er­ties for extend­ed prod­uct pro­tec­tion and shelf-life, as well as strong punc­ture resis­tance. Addi­tion­al­ly, MonoFlex Ther­mo­form allows a seam­less switch on the pack­ing lines from alter­na­tive sub­strates, main­tain­ing com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with exist­ing pack­ing lines with­out com­pro­mis­ing pack­ag­ing speeds. Avail­able as ful­ly print­ed or unprint­ed top and base film, the pack­ag­ing sup­ports con­ven­tion­al and HD flex­o­graph­ic or rotogravure print with options for matt, gloss and tac­tile lac­quer fin­ish­ing, enhanc­ing con­sumer appeal and pro­duc­ing an attrac­tive on-shelf presentation.

“We are extreme­ly pleased with the suc­cess­ful com­mer­cial launch of MonoFlex­Ther­mo­form for tor­tilla wraps. This sus­tain­able alter­na­tive to non-recy­clable mate­ri­als deliv­ers the same shelf-life per­for­mance while sav­ing resources and help­ing cus­tomers meet their sus­tain­abil­i­ty tar­gets. It also show­cas­es the advan­tage of col­lab­o­ra­tion between Cov­eris’ pro­duc­tion sites and Film Sci­ence Lab exper­tise, enabling the devel­op­ment of high-per­for­mance sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing solu­tions”, com­ment­ed Kat­ja Kil­lian, BU Flex­i­bles Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor at Coveris.