IN Brief:
- The pouch uses polyethylene substrate and sealing films rather than a conventional mixed material laminate.
- An EVOH barrier layer protects oxygen sensitive products while Exxtra Seal polymers provide a broad sealing window.
- Conventional blown film production reduces the need for additional orientation machinery and processing stages.
ExxonMobil and Bandera have developed a polyethylene pet food pouch designed for recycling, combining a stiff outer substrate with an EVOH barrier sealing film produced through conventional blown film extrusion.
The outer web has been developed to provide the stiffness, optics, and dimensional stability needed for printing, lamination, and pouch conversion. Its heat resistance allows it to pass through downstream processes without the distortion that can affect registration, web handling, or finished pack appearance.
A separate sealing film produced on Bandera’s Barrier Flex technology provides oxygen protection and the seal characteristics required by pet food packs. ExxonMobil Exxtra Seal polymers create a wide operating window, while the EVOH layer restricts oxygen transmission through the pouch structure.
Both webs can be manufactured without a machine direction orientation stage. Orientation is widely used to increase stiffness and thermal stability in polyethylene films, although it adds machinery, energy demand, production space, and another group of operating variables to the conversion process.
Using conventional blown film equipment could broaden the number of converters able to trial the structure without installing a dedicated orientation line. Commercial performance will still depend on resin cost, extrusion output, gauge control, printing, lamination, pouch making, and the speed achieved on the customer’s filling equipment.
The project forms part of a wider effort to simplify food packaging structures while preserving the properties delivered by established laminates. Plastipak has pursued a comparable balance between recyclability and barrier protection in PET formats, as material developers work to remove incompatible layers without shortening shelf life or disrupting production.
Pet food places substantial demands on flexible packaging because products can be dense, irregular, oily, and abrasive. Packs may contain several kilograms of dry pieces, travel through automated handling systems, and face repeated movement during distribution and storage. Gussets, seals, corners, handles, and closures all need to withstand those loads.
Fat oxidation and aroma loss create additional requirements. Dry and semi moist recipes can deteriorate when oxygen or moisture moves through the pack, while strong product aromas need to remain contained throughout a long ambient shelf life. Barrier performance therefore needs to remain stable after printing, lamination, flexing, filling, sealing, palletisation, and transport.
A structure designed for recycling must also run consistently on commercial packing equipment. Seal initiation temperature, hot tack, stiffness, coefficient of friction, and web flatness affect line speed and pack integrity. A film that performs well in material testing can still prove difficult to feed, form, or seal when introduced to a high output pouch line.
EVOH can be used within recognised thresholds in polyethylene recycling structures, although the complete pack determines its eventual compatibility. Adhesives, inks, valves, zippers, labels, and closures all contribute to the material entering the waste stream, while collection and sorting provision varies between markets.
ExxonMobil and Bandera have concentrated on reducing conversion complexity as well as simplifying the finished laminate. Validation across extrusion, printing, pouch making, filling, distribution, shelf life, and recycling will establish whether the structure can replace conventional pet food packs without lowering line performance or product protection.
