SAPPI PAPER FOOD BARRIER ARRIVES

Ball & Doggett has signed a partnership agreement with Sappi to distribute its sustainable barrier papers, which provide the sought-after barrier functionality in paper-based food packaging.

Adoption of paper-based flexible packaging is finding lift off in Australian, with brand owners looking to make the switch from flexible plastics and foils to fibre. For print businesses the trend opens up much more of the packaging market, as they are mainly geared up to print on paper, and not so much onto plastics.

For Ball & Doggett, Australia’s largest distributor of printable materials and consumables, the new partnership bolsters the company’s expanding product offering. This is its first foray into flexible materials.

Sappi is producing functional papers with integrated barrier functionality and heat-sealing properties. These papers for flexible packaging, which Ball & Doggett will distribute, come with integrated barriers against oxygen, water vapour, grease, aroma, and mineral oil.

According to Sappi, the integrated barriers mitigate the need to apply special coatings or laminations, an innovative development that meets market demand for alternatives to foils and plastic.

Lou Tsoukalas, national manager for Flexible Packaging at Ball & Doggett said the partnership with Sappi signals the company's expansion into the flexibles market. “We continue to diversify our product offering at Ball & Doggett and present sustainable alternatives where fit for purpose,” Tsoukalas said. “This is an exciting space in the Labels & Packaging division of our business and is experiencing sustained growth stemming from continuous product innovation.”

Craig Brown, managing director of Sappi Australasia, said, “The partnership will be a huge benefit for customers needing a quick turnaround as new business opportunities are created for barrier papers.

“Having stock available from Ball & Doggett’s warehouses in Australia, will bring a more efficient and timely process to what is a long lead-time out of our European manufacturing base,” Brown explains. “We have found that new business can be a long and expensive process from concept, to trials, to orders and having stock on the floor will help streamline that.”

This partnership grants Ball & Doggett distribution rights for three of Sappi’s paper-based packaging grades – produced from largely renewable sources.

Offering a paper-based packaging solution with integrated heat-sealing function, and two high-barrier paper-based packaging solutions to replace multi-layer barrier films, provides greater value and sustainable options to support Ball & Doggett’s customers and brand owners.