Packaging Consultants

Flexible packaging represents a dynamic market for growth. Substantial opportunities exist in many of its sub-categories, with pouches ranking right up there at the top of the mix.

While many package printers are positioning themselves to get a piece of this action, there are any number of companies that are already well established in this arena. CLP, an Israel-based company that does business in 26 countries around the world, happens to be one of them.

Rooted in plastic

CLP was founded in 1971 in Kibbutz Negba, Israel in a regional effort to diversify the area’s economic base by getting into the plastics industry. The company focused its efforts on flexible packaging, which has formed a successful foundation for growth over the years.

Today, CLP has its main manufacturing operation in Israel; a pouch-making plant in Russia; and marketing offices in Fairfield, N.J. (CLP Packaging Solutions), Moscow, Russia, and Johannesburg, South Africa. The company employs 260 people worldwide. Overall, its manufacturing operations include three 8-color, 1270 mm rotogravure presses (two Cerutti and one Uteco), two Uteco flexo presses (8 colors, 1200 mm), and a Chesnut narrow-web gravure press (8 colors, 380 mm).

Key markets include food (with significant growth being experienced in retort packaging), beverage, cleaning wipes and detergents, health and beauty aids, medical and diagnostic products, and pet food. To support these markets, Aaron Samuel, VP sales and marketing, says the company has focused its R&D efforts in several areas that represent promising growth opportunities. These areas include retortable pouches, beverage pouches (with special PE layers for packaging mineral water without developing off-flavors), and hard-to-hold materials such as alcohol, iodine, and other solvents. “CLP focuses in markets where technology, expert manufacturing, and precision printing are important,” says Samuel.

Pouch expertise

CLP got an early start in the pouch business. Samuel reports that the company has been printing and laminating films for pouches since its start in 1971.

Laminations are one of the key factors affecting pouch functionality. “Creating a pouch is very demanding, because of course, you must have a laminate that serves as an effective barrier, and you must also create reliable seals,” says David Idan, Research and Technology. CLP meets all its laminating needs in-house, including solvent-based, solventless, and extrusion laminations.

For beverage pouches, Idan highlights two requirements CLP has been able to master—no off-flavors and no leaking. Preventing the development of off-flavors with water in pouches is critical. To accomplish this, Idan says, “We developed a special PE that confers no odor, no off-flavors from residual monomers or additives—that is very important for packaging water, which must be protected from oxygen, but which can pick up flavors very easily. We prepare the lamination for our water pouches using a special lamination process that also protects against off-flavors.”

To meet the pouch sealing requirements for beverages, CLP “developed special PE, lamination, and pouch-making processes to ensure that there are no leaks during filling, shipment, or on the shelf,” notes Idan.

Retort pouches have been a very successful endeavor for CLP in recent years. But retort processes put increased demands on the packaging. Says Idan: “It can be quite challenging—seals must be able to withstand the pressure created when the pouch contents are heated in the retort chamber. Inks also have to be chosen carefully to perform under such extreme conditions.”

CLP operates a complete retort pilot plant where it performs its product development work for this market.

With beverage pouches, consumer access to the drink is a source of creative design implementations. “Fitments are becoming extremely popular, and I believe they will be an important factor in driving demand for beverage pouches,” says Leslie Gurland, general manager CLP Packaging Solutions. “We recently purchased a fitment machine specifically to deliver these consumer-friendly features in tandem with our pouch-making capabilities.”

“We’re also using proprietary CLP laser-scoring technology to add convenience features,” she says. “We can create curved laser scores that allow customers to easily and neatly tear open a corner of a beverage pouch, then have a straw bob up through the hole—that’s been extremely popular from Turkey to South Africa. We also have been developing other exciting capabilities that use laser scoring to facilitate access without compromising the barrier properties of the pouch.”

A bright future

Beverage pouches show a lot of promising growth opportunities in many markets, says Samuel. “We’re getting tremendous response from our work in water pouches. Sports beverages are another big growth opportunity, especially when we add features like fitments and shaped pouches. We have customers that package wine in pouches, and we’ve even looked at higher-alcohol beverages. After all, they’re a natural fit for us, because we’ve already tackled laminates for alcohol in our work for medical and diagnostic companies.”

Although the future is bright for beverages in pouches, Samuel knows it’s a competitive landscape. However, he thinks “the time is right for the U.S. market and other markets to start seeing more beverages in flexible packaging.” n