Joined forces! Amcor and Nestlé have collaborated to launch a ground-breaking product-a recyclable flexible cooking bag, which is said to be the world's first. The new high-barrier bag uses Amcor's AmLite HeatFlex recyclable solution and will be available on the market in October 2020.

Amco and Nestlé have teamed up to overcome what they believe is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry, namely, the difficulty of retorting flexible packaging.

The challenge with standard cooking bags is that they are made of mixed materials, usually PET, aluminum foil and polypropylene (PP) layers. Although this combination can create high-performance packaging, Amcor said that this mixed-material structure cannot be recycled anywhere in the world today.

High barrier, high heat resistance, recyclable polypropylene PP bag

The new retort bag is a polypropylene (PP) bag that uses an ultra-thin AmLite transparent barrier coating to protect the product. This new type of cooking bag has been confirmed as a recyclable product by the German research institute Cyclos-HTP. Cyclos-HTP is an organization specializing in packaging and product recyclability classification, evaluation and certification.

The two companies have carried out a full range of cooperation in the product development process to test the heat resistance, machine performance, shelf life and recyclability of the products in practical applications.

"Amcor and Nestlé have jointly created a unique packaging solution. This is a technology that has been considered impossible by the industry for many years," said Michael Zacka, President of Amcor Flexibles EMEA. "This kind of packaging with high barrier and high heat resistance It can be easily recycled in plastic recycling streams in several European countries."

The flexible cooking bag is being put on the market as an alternative to metal cans. The two companies said that because of its light weight, high resource efficiency, easy transportation and minimizing food waste, the flexible cooking bag can improve the carbon of hundreds of consumer products. Footprint. According to Amcor, increasing recyclability will improve the environmental footprint of the packaging solution by 60%.

The new retort pouch also complies with the circular economy packaging guidelines recently issued by the CEFLEX Alliance. Graham Houlder, CEFLEX’s project coordinator, said: “This is a good demonstration of how companies can solve the biggest challenge of recyclability through innovation. Recyclable cooking packaging is a revolutionary breakthrough that will give pet food and other Food has a huge impact."