World-first Ultimate biodegradable packaging

The highly innovative technical team at Ultimate Packaging believes it has produced a world first environmentally-friendly product as part of a joint venture with Innovia Films and Sun Chemical. Staff at the North East Lincolnshire-based company believe that Ultigreen™ is the first ever truly biodegradable and home compostable printed laminate for the food industry.

Using hybrid biodegradable inks, Ultimate Packaging has reverse-printed Natureflex™ and laminated the material using a unique biodegradable adhesive to metallised Natureflex™. The Grimsby-based company has already established itself as one of the UKs flexographic print suppliers to the food industry, but the experienced team continue to focus on finding innovative new solutions for its customers.

Ultimate Packaging Technical Manager, Derek Gibson, explains "Until now, only a small coverage of standard inks could be used to enable products to pass the EN13432 standard and to be rated as biodegradable. The new Sun Chemical hybrid inks allow total print coverage on food packs and the biodegradable adhesive applied to bond these two Innovia materials means that this product can be classed as being made from totally biodegradable components.

"We selected a promotional tea design to prove that the newly developed biodegradable inks and adhesive were compatible and then printed the Ultigreen™ product on our recently commissioned Soma Imperia 10 colour press."

The new product development team at Ultimate Packaging is now working on further products using the new ink and adhesive technology to bring additional completely biodegradable and home compostable flexible films to their food industry customers.

"This really is an exciting development for us and we believe that it has enormous potential, says Chris Tonge, Ultimate Packaging Sales and Marketing Director. "It is only the first of several new products that will set our family-run business apart from our competitors."