Walki launches recyclable frozen food portfolio

According to Walki, the global market for frozen food is expected to grow to 322 billion EUR by 2026. Although the demand is growing globally across all age groups, it is especially popular among younger consumers.

‘Frozen food is ideal for prolonging shelf life without losing out on vitamins. It is also an excellent way to combat food waste. This is important as up to 9 percent of global carbon emissions can be attributed to food waste, especially fruit and vegetables,’ said Dudley Jones, consumer sales at Walki.

'Frozen food places high demands on the packaging. It needs to be both sturdy and puncture-resistant to handle diverse situations like sealing pressures and mechanical tear during transportation. The packaging also needs to withstand temperature variability as some frozen food is defrosted in its packaging,’ added Jones.

Walki Evo Seal and Walki Opti Seal are recyclable paper-based packaging intended especially for pillow pouches for frozen food. Walki Evo Seal has a dispersion coating as a barrier against water, vapor and grease, while Walki Opti Seal has an optimized PE-extrusion coating. Both are suitable for all kinds of frozen food.

‘The dispersion coating makes Walki Evo Seal recyclable in the waste-paper stream without any separation process, while the minimized PE-coating on Walki Opti Seal makes it suitable to be recycled with paper with an acceptable fiber yield,’ said Andreas Rothschink, head of product development at Walki.

Lamibel MDO-PE is a film-based material for pillow pouches made of reverse printed MDO-film and solvent-free laminated with low sealing LDPE. Thanks to the MDO technology, the film thickness is minimized while performance is maximized by replacing other materials such as PP or PET films.

‘This combination of two PE films makes the packaging fully recyclable in the plastics stream. The stretched film has better optics with high stiffness and mechanical properties than standard PE. The film can also be transparent, allowing the consumer to see the product,’ added Rothschink.

Lamibel MDO-PE is suitable for all types of packaging (doypack, flowpack, pouches, etc.) and all kinds of frozen foods like vegetables, sharp-edges seafood, and bakery.