LD PACK: The output value exceeds 600 million RMB-2
Undoubtedly, 2023 will be a year full of challenges and variables. Under this era, "internal competition" has become a key word. In the face of fierce competition and changing market, it is particularly important for enterprises to deal with the difficulties and look for breakthroughs. Recently, LD PACK received an invited interview from the editorial department of PACKAGING FOREFRONT. Now, let's see how LD Pack broke through the dilemma and reversed the trend, and what is the forecast and outlook for the market prospect in 2024.
Interviewees:
Zhong Jianchang
General Manager
LD Packaging Co., Ltd
Products development of mono-materials
In recent years, we have made great effort on the development of mono-materials. In 2023, we achieved a major breakthrough on mono PE film, and successfully developed a MDOPE with both high barrier and heat resistance. It realizes that the oxygen resistance and water resistance of a single layer film without coating can be less than 1, and the flatness and heat resistance of the film are very good, which solves the two major technical difficulties and greatly reduces the loss of materials. In addition, our customers using mono-materials solution have also increased from two or three to over ten.
Current development of mono-materials in Europe & America:
European and American governments have strict laws and regulation to require all brands to use mono-material for packaging, otherwise the products are not allowed to be sold in supermarkets. the original stock of old packaging will also be required to change within a limited time. Due to these laws and regulations, European and American enterprises must develop and use mono-material for packaging.
However, even in foreign countries, mono-material is an emerging industry developed in recent years, so It hasn't scaled up yet in Europe and the U.S. market, and it is also not easy to replace all the old packaging gradually.That is because there are only a few enterprises that can provide completed mono-materials packaging solutions, flexible packaging giant such as Amcor or MONDI. So no matter at home and abroad, everyone is at the same starting lines of mono-material development. The biggest difference is that there has been legislation abroad, and many brands require our export orders must use mono-material packaging. But in the domestic market, except some multinational enterprises like Nestle, Mars, proposed to gradually implement the requirements of mono-material packaging, most domestic brands are not very willing to promote mono-material packaging.
The biggest technical difficulties of mono-material:
(1) The most critical factor is whether the material can meet the requirements of heat resistance, barrier and flatness. It has little relation with the subsequent printing, laminating and pouch-making process. As long as the material performance meets requirement, the problems including weak heat sealing, uneven pouch opening and uneven printing edge, can be easily solved.
(2) The upstream and downstream industrial chain of mono-materials should be matched, including the performance of resin materials, film blowing equipment, automatic filling machines and automatic packaging machines. For example, the tension and temperature control of the current automatic filling and packaging machines cannot adapt to the usage of mono-materials. It is easy to cause material shrinking and deformation when heated. So it is required to update the existing filling lines, otherwise it cannot meet the requirement of mono-materials.
Some time ago, I went abroad to investigate and visited three factories of filling machines. They said that 50% of the new orders received now require equipment suitable for mono-material, so the whole tension and heating system should be improved.
The cost of the mono-material packaging we produced now is about 20% to 30% higher than that of the ordinary laminated film. Moreover, it is available for all the pouch types, including stand up pouch, zipper pouch, spout pouch and eight-side seal pouch, just with difference of efficiency. The most difficult of these pouch types is the eight-side seal pouch, which has high requirement on the heat resistance of material. During hot pressing, especially in the gusset position, the temperature and pressure are difficult to control, and the flatness of the pouch is difficult to compare with that made of ordinary laminated film.
Our mono-material solution of spout pouch for liquid packaging can reach the maximum weight capacity of 3~4L, and it will not break when it falls 3 times at a distance of 1 meter.
