It's in the Bag

Pouches have come a long way over the past few years, but the sky is the limit and converters need to stay abreast of the business opportunities that pouches can offer.

The pouch market has been strong for many years now and like everything else in the realm of package printing, it's still a tough-go for converters to understand what new technologies are out there to best compete for jobs. In addition, consumer product companies (CPCs) continue to ask converters to come up with new and different ideas because of the competition they face within their own marketplace.

"The acceptance of the premade flexible pouches by consumers is one of the major reasons flexibles are the fastest growing segment in United States' packaging history," said Craig Rutman, director of sales and marketing for Kapak Co. "The pouch, with all of its convenience options … helps our customers secure a competitive advantage in the marketplace, create brand identity, and higher product profit margins. New business and increased sales are the result."

In the basket

Consumers are filling up their baskets and shopping carts with items packed safely and securely inside a pouch, and without even knowing it they are perpetuating a fascinating packaging trend.

There is a wide assortment of markets taking advantage of the features that pouches provide: food, beverage, industrial, agricultural, chemical, medical, health, beauty, pet health, and even law enforcement. "In all of these markets, we help our customers create competitive advantages through value-added pouch making capabilities," said Rutman.

These customers are looking for something "special" to package their goods in—to make their product stand out from the rest of the crowd on the super-jammed supermarket shelves. The competition is fierce to have a company's product draw the attention of the consumer, so it's in their best interests to keep the consumers' wants and needs in the front line of their minds. This is a perfect niche for the pouch.

"Reacting to the consumer's desire for convenience, [pouches] can offer resealability (press-to-close and slider versions), spouts, handles, tear notches, rounded corners, and contoured diecut shaped as pouch options," said Rutman. "All of the above create brand identity for our customers and convenience for the end users."

Creating ease for the customers is great, but pouch converters also need to find a way to make themselves stand out in a growing field that is becoming more competitive each year. Glenroy has found a certain niche within the pouch converting community—to find a way to package the "gooey stuff" of the world.

"One of our niche strategies is to provide high-quality flexible packaging for hard-to-hold products," said Gary Bobko, vice president of marketing and sales for Glenroy. "For example, we have developed proprietary laminations specifically for ointments, shampoos, conditioners, and other liquids, lotions, and demanding applications. Pouches that provide total containment without leaking is critical to the success of the product."

How're we gonna do this?

Once pouch converters know their market, they need to form a partnership with not only their customers, but the design team as well. A bad pouch design can slow down the converting process, costing lots of money and headaches.

"From the start, we found that most designers are very good with designs, however, they do not know enough about the actual printing presses. This causes issues when receiving artwork that is not properly designed, or is not in the layout for the style of printing we are doing," said Dean Hoss, president and CEO of The Pyramid Group. The Pyramid Group took first place in pP's 2005 Excellence Awards Competition for a retort pouch they printed for chili.

In 1992, Blake Hoss, son of Dean Hoss, started at The Pyramid Group and brought with him a background in art and design. "We, at that time, brought in-house all of the designers, prepress, illustrators, photographers, etc., in order to do the entire work from concept to production of the flexible packaging," said Dean.

Bobko also agreed with the need to be involved early in the design stage. "We must be intimately involved with the design from the inception to insure a quality end product, and to know the equipment that the customer is using to form, fill, and seal the pouches," he said.

"During the design of new packaging, one needs to fully understand the customer's performance requirements and develop a structure that meets all of them," said Jake Zehr, business development manager for American Packaging Corp. (APC), and a second-place winner in pP's 2005 Excellence Awards competition for a stir fry pouch. "Areas of consideration include: barrier requirements (moisture, oxygen, grease, etc.), puncture resistance, fade resistance, drop testing, slip characteristics, freezer options, reclosures options, and openability."

Dr. Rani Stern, chief technical officer for CLP Industries, (third-place winner in pP's Excellence Awards competition), said the design stage of pouch converting is where many issues can be solved, especially for the stand-up variety.

Printing process

Printing pouches, according to some converters, doesn't necessarily mean purchasing new equipment, but, as the graphics are dictated by their customers' needs, it's important to have a good array of substrates and process options available.

"We are required to use a wide variety of substrates to meet customers' stringent specifications. We use many common layers such as foil and linear low density, to the more demanding barex and our own proprietary layers we have developed and marketed exclusively," said Bobko. "Glenroy has 10-color printing capabilities so we can offer our customers a wide range of options. We have found that the market demands high quality with many color choices, while being cost effective."

Most of the materials used with pouches are of the main-stream variety, said Zehr, such as PET, OPP, nylon, PE, and COEX sealants, and extruded foil-based structures. Stern said his company prints pouches on PET, BOPP, or BONYL, but believes PET is the best choice since "it allows us to deliver very sharp outlines, details, small lettering and provides great gloss."

Hoss has found that his company has to develop the right substrate in accordance to what its customers are asking for. "All of our clients' packaging needs are custom to their particular applications, so we develop the correct material that will give them the properties that will assist in the marketing of their product."

A variety of different printing methods are used in pouch printing. Kapak favors rotogravure as its primary printing process for pouches, specifically with its Toshiba sectional-driven rotogravure press. On the other hand, Glenroy employs the flexographic printing process, "because it offers an excellent balance between high quality and cost compared to other printing alternatives," said Bobko. Glenroy also reverse-prints the laminations to trap the ink between the outer layer (usually polyester) and an inner substrate. Bobko said the buried ink is then protected from abrasion, attack by outside contaminates, or even the customer's own product which all may cause ink erosion.

Fort Retort

As the markets for pouches increase, so does the different kinds of pouches. One such example of this is retort pouches. Up until recently, many retort pouches were produced offshore, but some U.S. companies are jumping on the bandwagon of this hot item. Retort pouches need to be able to hold a product for many months and years, but there are many other benefits also associated with retort.

According to Rutman, some of these include: reduced cooking time which improves taste and cycle time; no sharp edges such as cans can generate; takes up less space yielding increased warehouse utilization; package differentiation enables increased sales; weighs less, reducing transportation costs; rotogravure printing offers improved graphics capabilities; package durability means no dented cans; and complete package evacuation enables improved product yield.

But producing retort pouches is not completely rosy. "Retort pouches bring many challenges, such as special inks, materials, and adhesives that need to be used to give the client a product that will hold up," said Hoss. To help with the construction of retort pouches, CLP Technologies has developed several tests to make sure its product stands up to the competition. "Retort pouches demand top quality, high professionalism, and outstanding performance in order to resist the extreme conditions of the retort process," said Stern.

What's in store

To make money in the converting business, printers need to stay on top of trends and new opportunities.

Stern said stand-up pouches show the highest growth rate among all segments of pouch converting, and Hoss agrees with this trend. Rutman said the food and beverage industries are currently purchasing the largest percentage of premade pouches and are also the two market segments that have the greatest potential for growth.

by Megan Wolf

Assistant Editor