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Plastic containers

Plastic has become very popular as a food packaging material because of its considerable range of applications, flexibility of use, high resistance/weight ratio and, last but not least, its transparency.

Cuki Professional develops specific solutions for the food industry in terms of technologies used and of attention to the design of the containers for various sectors, such as dairy, protein and ready meals.

There are lots of different kinds of plastic and each has a specific use. For this reason, Cuki Professional proposes different kinds of materials, according to specific needs in terms of appearance, temperature interval, appropriate food use, duration of storage, barrier properties and environmental impact. Cuki Professional proposes specific solutions for hot filling, cold filling and more complex processes such as freezing, deep freezing and pasteurisation.

Polypropylene (PP)

 

Polypropylene is a thermoplastic material suitable for contact with food. It has many characteristics, including:

  • intermediate transparency (lower than PET);
  • high permeability to oxygen and low permeability to steam;
  • wide range of temperature of use, from -20°C to + 120°C;
  • suitable for heating in microwave ovens.

Product performance

 

PP, which has greater resistance to heat compared to PET, has a considerable limitation – it is less transparent.

To overcome this limitation and to guarantee the temperature ranges of PP, the market offers composite PP-PET materials, which however are not recyclable.

To solve this problem, Cuki Professional offers its industrial customers a PP with a clarifying agent (PP Clear), which guarantees the temperature ranges of PP combined with levels of transparency close to those of PET.

The new Cuki Professional product (PP Clear) has been compared in terms of “haze” (opacity): the higher the value, the less transparent the item. The tests have shown that Clear Cuki PP is twice as transparent compared to PP/PE products and as transparent as PET/PE products, which, as multi-material items, are not recyclable and have a smaller temperature range.

The advantages are enormous, because Cuki Professional’s PP guarantees:

  • mono-material, and therefore 100% recyclable, in line with the most recent EU directives;
  • heat resistance up to 120°C;
  • natural barrier effect for all the applications that require a medium/short shelf-life (fresh products and the protein industry);
  • heat sealability (suitable for all packaging systems);
  • suitable for the most common industrial processes (freezing, pasteurisation, etc.) and heating in microwave ovens;
  • ideal for ready-to-eat solutions and ready meals.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)

 

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a thermoplastic resin suitable for food contact with multiple properties:

  • excellent transparency and brilliance;
  • 100% recyclable;
  • broad range of temperature of use: our containers (technically definable as APET) can be used for freezing, as low as -40°C and with hot products up to +65°C;
  • odourless, tasteless and non-reactive with most substances;
  • resistant to hydrocarbons, including aromatic, fats, oils, acids and alkali;
  • compliant with EU regulations on food contact plastic packaging.

Product performance

 

Cuki Professional pays special attention to the production of PET containers, which makes it even more eco-sustainable: its “sandwich” structure means the product core can be made with material recycled from flakes. The recycled flakes come from post-consumer PET bottles certified by an independent body. Up to 80% of Cuki PET can be of recycled origin and only the outer layer is made of virgin material for food contact.

PET can be 100% recycled, closing the product’s virtuous cycle, which makes it even more sustainable.

Cuki Professional is therefore the perfect partner for companies in the industry in terms of development of specific solutions for every packaging system for fresh foods (meat, fish, chicken, fresh pasta, etc.) and for freezing.

Tags

  • Innovation, Plastic trays

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