Seeking: Compostable Cold Seal Adhesives and Release Lacquers

Overview:

A leading snack food manufacturer is seeking home compostable cold seal adhesive and release lacquer materials for use in flow wrap packaging of heat sensitive products.  

Background:

Enabling fully home compostable packaging requires all layers –  substrate, inks, cold seal adhesives and release lacquer – meet home compostability standards. While some cold seal biodegradable adhesives have been introduced to the market, their ability to stick is often compromised by the addition of  release lacquers. Furthermore, many release lacquers do not meet home compostability requirements. A cold seal adhesive and release lacquer system that work well together for high performance while also being compostable is ideal for next generation packaging.

Requirements:

• Both Cold Adhesive and Release Lacquer should
  • Offer very similar performance to cold seal packaging on the market today
  • Be compostable (see standards here)
  • Work with bio-based substrates such as PLA, PBS, cellulose, and paper
  • Require only a thin layer of material
  • Be FDA compliant as food safe or as a food contact substances (FCS), or have a have high likelihood of being certified as such

• Release lacquer should
  • Not stick to itself, even in tropical environmental conditions (e.g. 40°C ± 2°C and 90% ± 5% relative humidity for up to 72 hours)
  • Must be compatible with the cold seal adhesives and packaging substrate material being used. 

• Cold Seal should
  • Require a short dwell time

Possible Solution Areas:

• Biodegradable coating formulations and release systems made from starches, waxes, proteins or bio-derived polyamide or polyesters
• Biomedical films
• Agricultural films
• Edible coatings
• Compostable substrates with bio green chemistry barriers or sealants
• Sustainable coatings or nano-structured films

Desired outcome of the solution:

Client is open to a range of potential partnership pathways that would enable the introduction of fully home compostable packaging to the market.

Related TechNeeds:

PepsiCo Seeking: Biodegradable Spray Coatings For Fiber-based Packaging

PepsiCo Seeking: Biodegradable Thermoplastic Resin for Injection Molding

Haleon Seeking: Cellulose-Based Sustainable Packaging Solutions

PepsiCo Seeking: Moisture Barrier for Flexible Packaging

Image by BingAI