Author :chentao2036@yahoo.com.cn

An excellent soft packaging enterprise consists of at least the following five basic elements: hardware advantage, quality advantage, technology advantage, price advantage and management advantage. There is an old saying: "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first." Let's take a look at how the plastic flexible packaging industry should deal with opportunities and challenges.

As far as composite forms are concerned, plastic flexible packaging is generally divided into three sections; Solvent-free compounding, dry compounding and extrusion compounding. Among them, dry composite printing is the absolute mainstream, and dry composite printing is generally gravure printing and lining printing, in which lining printing accounts for the vast majority.

The following is my concern about the market application of dry composite flexible packaging products (printing methods) and technologies, focusing on my analysis, introduction, suggestions and countermeasures on the market and opportunities of plastic flexible packaging. I welcome criticism and correction of unfinished business.

First, ordinary food packaging

Plastic soft packaging industry is used to calling the packaging of snack food "ordinary packaging", which generally does not need to be boiled, boiled or sterilized. In fact, ordinary packaging is not ordinary, and there are many articles about ordinary food packaging. The so-called ordinary packaging is only because it is relatively simple in material and structure, mostly two-layer structure, or even single-layer structure, that is, sheet film (snack packaging for bread desserts). Commonly used materials are mainly PET, VMPET, KPET, matte PET, OPP, pearlescent OPP, matte OPP, VMOPP, KOP, CPE, ivory PE, CPP and VMCPP, which are mostly used in conventional packaging.

BOPA and aluminum are not widely used in ordinary packaging, and these two materials are generally used in high-grade packaging.

When we say ordinary packaging is unusual, we actually mean the hygiene and safety of ordinary packaging, the stability of printing quality and product quality. At the same time, there are individual companies' personalized requirements for ordinary packaging, which will make ordinary packaging unusual. For example, the printing levels are clear and rich, and the colors are bright. For example, the overprinting accuracy is high, such as the flatness and strength requirements of bag making and edge sealing, and the environmental protection performance of products. Some large flexible packaging enterprises have done very well in this respect. For example, printing ink should be environmentally friendly ink insoluble in benzene, including water-based ink, alcohol-based ink, alcohol-soluble ink and ester-soluble ink. Most materials such as compound glue are water-based materials, and toxic solvent substances such as toluene, xylene and isopropanol are not used as production AIDS, so benzene and ketone are resolutely achieved. These are what high-end users in the market need.

General food packaging is the largest and most important market segment in the flexible packaging market. Among them, there are not only simple packaging businesses of sweets, biscuits, cakes (pies), puffed food, fried food, convenience food, candied fruit, dry goods, roasted seeds and nuts, but also businesses that need pasteurization and boiling, such as jelly, jelly strips, frozen absorption and turtle paste. There are mainly single film, rolled film and various bag types in form, including sealed bags represented by penguin bags. It is suggested that flexible packaging manufacturers with weak technology should pay attention to it first and improve their technology and management level by mastering ordinary packaging in depth. For example, the jelly cover film needs pasteurization and easy tearing. Most of them are transparent packaging, but there are also many aluminum-plated films. Among them, the packaging of Guiling Ointment requires higher covering film, because the sterilization temperature is obviously higher than that of jelly products, which requires better covering film. These all lead to different material selection and specific technology from jelly covering film.

Since 2008, the jelly bar market has risen rapidly. Jelly bar is a powerful extension and branch of jelly food. It is understood that jelly bars have performed well since their listing.

The market of lollipops also has high requirements for packaging materials, which is mainly determined by the introduction of advanced packaging equipment by food factories. The packaging form of lollipops is very special, the equipment efficiency is extremely high, and there are also very personalized requirements for packaging materials, such as high temperature resistance, friction coefficient, tensile properties and so on.

In addition, it is worth noting that a large dairy group company represented by Mengniu is preparing to use suction frozen vertical bags to hold ice cream food. It is reported that the sample work has ended, and it can be put into mass production immediately, and a small number of products have been put on the market, which will be a huge market. At present, there is a good profit margin and a strong export for vertical bags. It can hold not only jelly food, but also yogurt, ice cream and other foods.

In addition, the milk powder packaging in the general packaging market is also a good market, but in addition to the high quality requirements for packaging, such as environmental protection and strict supplier selection, there are generally high requirements for suppliers' hardware conditions, equipment conditions, production environment, management ability and qualification certification.

Two. Packaging of agricultural products (packaging of agricultural products, meat products and aquatic products)

Agricultural product packaging (packaging of agricultural products, meat products and aquatic products) is a market segment with the highest added value of dry composite soft packaging. At the same time, this is also a challenging market, because every plastic flexible package has to go through the high-temperature sterilization process of boiling or cooking with the packaged products, and most of the deep-processed agricultural products are mainly exported. In this link, almost any quality and technical problems hidden in plastic flexible packaging products, and even management problems will be exposed in this link. For example, ink migration and discoloration are not uncommon, such as delamination and interlaminar whitening (atomization). , such as warping or curling. For example, the fall resistance is very poor, such as the micro-fracture phenomenon that is easy to appear at the folds formed after vacuum pumping, and the environmental protection performance. Even enterprises are not familiar with materials, and use non-environmental protection compound glue which has been banned internationally, so the control accuracy of solvent residue. All these must arouse the full attention of practitioners.

In addition to the requirement of high barrier index, the market of packaging bags for deep processing of agricultural products has the following outstanding characteristics; Most of them are exported deep-processed products with high environmental protection performance and cleanliness. After high-temperature sterilization, they can keep soft, transparent, high printing accuracy and high edge sealing quality. Moreover, the size and specifications of customers have changed greatly, and the printing patterns have changed greatly. Most of them use physical patterns, and more gold ink is used. Moreover, the delivery time is fast, and the single quantity of each order is not very large and seasonal.

A large number of plastic flexible packaging are mainly the following; Sweet corn, boiled bamboo shoots, edible fungi, buckwheat, ginger, lotus root, Anhui cuisine, burdock, bracken, original mustard tuber, sweet potato (chestnut), wild vegetables, Chili sauce, sweet and spicy sauce, thick soup, and products such as apples, pears, cherries, peaches and oranges.

(Please see the figure below: Classification of China's agricultural exports to Japan in 2008. Source: Ministry of Commerce's food analysis report on Japanese seizure of China in 2008. )

According to different sterilization temperatures, packaging can be roughly divided into two categories; Boil and boil. According to the material structure and service temperature, it can be roughly divided into three categories; Ordinary boiling (boiling) bag, high barrier boiling (boiling) bag, aluminum foil boiling (boiling) bag. Most bags are sealed on three sides, but there are also many vertical bags, as well as zipper vertical bags with high temperature cooking resistance and large three-sided sealed bags, such as large bags of 5kg or 6kg.

Meat products are mostly made in retort pouch, and aluminum foil retort pouch is used in small packages.

Aquatic products and seafood are mostly refrigerated bags and quick-frozen bags, and a few cooked foods use vacuum retort pouch.

The ultra-high barrier and high temperature cooking-resistant vacuum transparent packaging bag represented by sweet corn should be said to be the agricultural product packaging bag with the highest technical content, which requires not only transparency, ultra-high barrier and cooking-resistance, but also flexibility after cooking (to ensure the corners formed after vacuumizing and avoid packaging damage or leakage accidents in the logistics process). Because sweet corn is extremely sensitive to oxygen, it is easy to cause quality accidents due to oxygen permeation and discoloration, and the requirements for packaging bags are very high. In the early years, it was imported directly. In recent years, food processing enterprises have been looking for suppliers in China. Materials with high barrier structure are generally transparent ultra-high barrier materials imported from Japan, such as transparent aluminum-plated and transparent silicon-plated materials. Generally speaking, the oxygen permeability after cooking is not more than 0.5ml/m2/24h, and there are higher requirements, not more than 0. 1ml/m2/24h. Among them, transparent silicon plating material is better, and the stability and softness after cooking are better and more stable. Although the price is higher, it has become the mainstream choice of vacuum retort bag for sweet corn. However, the barrier properties of these high-end materials vary from low to high, and the price is not lower than 5 yuan /m2. Printing and compounding are extremely difficult and require high technical support.

Boiled bamboo shoots, lotus roots, Anhui cuisine, burdock, bracken and wild vegetables are mostly boiled and sterilized. The packaging materials used are mostly transparent waterproof high barrier packaging bags, which are generally divided into two-layer structure (KPA/PE) and three-layer structure (PET/KPA/PE) according to the weight of the contents. With regard to high barrier KPA materials, since last year, many large domestic export processing enterprises have received letters from foreign partners, which explicitly require that K materials should not be used for product packaging, mainly because the chlorine component of PVDC in K materials has environmental problems. The substitute material is high-tech plastic packaging material imported from Japan.

Edible fungi are one of the largest export agricultural products in China. The vast majority use transparent packaging, and only a few use aluminum foil packaging. There are boiled and boiled. So far, because the sterilization effect of cooking is more thorough, it is mostly the product of cooking sterilization process, and the material structure used is also transparent and ultra-high barrier material. Some products exported to Europe and America use aluminum foil packaging bags.

Buckwheat head and other products are generally boiled in ordinary bags, and the material structure is mostly two layers, so the requirements for barrier are generally not high.

Chestnut adopts special technology and adopts nitrogen-filled packaging form. The purpose is to protect chestnuts and prevent food from being crushed by the pressure caused by vacuum. Aluminum foil vertical retort pouch is the main structure, with four layers, and three layers are rare. Some are packaged in the form of inner and outer bags, that is, the outer bag does not participate in the cooking and sterilization process, and only the inner bag is cooked and sterilized at high temperature.

The soft packaging of canned fruits is a developing market. Because the color and appearance of canned fruit are very attractive, many enterprises are trying to use ultra-high barrier materials for packaging in order to introduce new packaging forms and reduce freight costs. The common sterilization process of canned fruit is boiling. In addition to the barrier performance must meet the requirements of packaged products, it should also be noted that most canned fruits are packed in large bags, such as packages with a weight of 3kg or 5kg or more, and special attention must be paid to the drop resistance of such large bags.

Meat products are divided into cooked food and frozen food. Cooked food is mostly made of transparent retort pouch-resistant bags (some of which are made of aluminum foil bags), which are divided into high barrier and non-high barrier. High barrier type is mostly used for export packaging, with relatively large net weight of contents and correspondingly large bag size. In addition to transparent packaging, frozen products also have aluminum-plated film packaging.

The packaging of seafood is mainly frozen bags. In addition to the low-grade PE packaging bags, there are also high-grade quick-frozen packaging for seafood exported from Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Tianjin, Liaoning and other coastal areas, which has a broad market.

Spaghetti and meatballs are packed in cold storage. Deeply influenced by Japan's "poison jiaozi" in 2008, the country now has very strict packaging management in this market. In addition to the quality of packaging bags and the qualification certification of suppliers, the requirements for electronic supervision codes are also increased.

Third, detergent packaging.

The detergent package mentioned here refers to the packaging bag used to package hand sanitizer, clothing softener, laundry detergent, wood floor cleaning cream (agent) and so on. , including baking ointment and other daily liquid products.

According to the market situation, detergent packaging bags mainly include plastic bottles and flexible vertical bags. As far as soft packaging bags are concerned, at present, except for the trial packaging for promotion, the rest are upright bags. At present, the mainstream in the domestic market is generally 1000ml vertical bag. In addition to exquisite printing, the vertical detergent bag also requires good anti-seepage and anti-falling performance, especially anti-falling performance, which is highly concerned by every manufacturer. In addition to ordinary upright bags, there are irregular upright bags, upright bags with handles and sealed upright bags.

It should be emphasized that the detergent packaging market is upgrading its packaging in two directions; First, the net weight of the contents increased from the initial 300ml and 500ml to 1000ml, and then to the present 2000ml. Because the net content reaches 2000ml, the drop resistance becomes a great challenge, and many flexible packaging enterprises can not meet the market demand technically. Because the flexible packaging vertical bag is superior to plastic bottle in inventory and drop resistance, the market share of flexible packaging vertical bag in detergent packaging has been increasing obviously.

Four, other packaging

Convenience food mainly refers to the rising microwave rice, self-heating rice and self-cooked rice food. After several years of downturn, the market in this field is developing rapidly at present, and capital is rapidly entering because of the good market prospects. In this market, flexible packaging mainly provides common high-temperature cooking film covering, high-barrier high-temperature cooking film covering and high-temperature cooking aluminum foil bags for food packaging.

Packaging of pet rations (mainly dog food and cat food). Pet rations are mainly packaged in large packages except small vertical zipper bags (1.5kg and 2kg), and the large packages are mostly 7kg and 10kg. Large packaging requires high equipment of soft packaging factory, especially the width and performance of bag-making machine.

There are many other packages, such as load-bearing bags represented by hardcover rice bags, aluminum foil bags for mask packaging, such as liquid pesticide bags, such as coffee bags with one-way exhaust valves, such as sanitary products, antistatic (shielding) electronic products packaging bags, such as industrial packaging bags, such as home textile packaging bags, and important medical packaging. As well as the application of extrusion compounding and solvent-free compounding, are all technology market segments with many wonderful highlights. This article will not repeat them one by one.

In fact, the market is not always static, and the market can always be created. The same is true of the plastic flexible packaging market. In addition to the existing market, we can also open up new markets. For example, the packaging of pet rations, recently I have successfully led a pet rations manufacturer to accept a 6.5kg super-large vertical sealed bag packaging form, which is unique in the pet rations market. And also successfully recommended users to accept transparent ultra-high barrier boiled packaging bags for canned fruits, and ultra-high barrier transparent vertical sealed bags for beer (currently in the sampling stage) and so on. There are many such examples, but these can not be achieved by individual efforts alone, but also by the technical strength and team strength of enterprises.

For a long time, I have been paying attention to the changes of vertical bags in the flexible packaging market, especially the vertical bags used in liquid food or products. From the packaging exhibition in recent two years, among the packaging equipment, vertical bag filling equipment has sprung up and developed rapidly, including not only frozen vertical bag filling equipment, but also detergent filling equipment. It has become the mainstream theme of packaging equipment exhibition. The packaging form of the upright bag is not only novel and convenient, but more importantly, it has strong display on the shelf. It can be predicted that in the future packaging market share, vertical bag packaging forms will increase significantly. It is suggested that flexible packaging enterprises should pay enough attention and strive to achieve good results in this emerging market.

Traditional cheapness is no longer a competitive advantage. Even the traditional high quality and low price, the advantages are constantly being reduced and weakened. Only by doing a good job in technological innovation, market innovation and management innovation can enterprises win in the next competition.

Only by improving the quality and technical level of products, perfecting concepts and optimizing mechanisms can flexible packaging enterprises truly build their own core competitiveness, actively change their concepts, truly focus on the market and customers, and actively use and apply the power of capital operation, so as to cope with this shuffling era without fear and make full use of the current opportunities to quickly occupy the market and occupy resources.

As an outsider who cares about China's plastic flexible packaging as much as I do, every time I see how many innovative and successful products and technologies have emerged in other industries besides plastic flexible packaging, I can't help but wonder whether the plastic flexible packaging industry in China can only simply produce and process products forever. ! When can China's plastic flexible packaging industry move from manufacturing to creation? When can we move from simple production and processing to technological innovation?

Whether it is market or technology, any market field is the same, and market income is always divided and dominated by high-end people. Leaders can always enjoy a hearty meal divided by the "28 principle" of the market easily and happily. This is the most meaningful and vivid exposition of the market law. Aren't toothpaste tubes and infusion bags the most successful models in the development of plastic packaging industry? ! Unfortunately, there is too little innovation in dry recycling soft packaging industry in China. Who doesn't know that leading naturally means taking risks, but excuse me, is there no risk if you are behind? ! Risk is only one of many factors that we need to study, and it is by no means the only factor. What is important is how to effectively control risks. In fact, the risks and costs of backwardness are also huge. This is a paradox, that is, can you afford the cost of innovation? Can you afford to fall behind?

What are the risks? What is risk? Fear of risk means inaction, and fear of risk means not making progress. What we need is to respect and treat risks rationally. Because risks are always hidden in various faces and forms, being kind to risks is our most authentic and practical interpretation of "crisis consciousness".

In fact, the risk is best hidden in the hearts of cowards, and it is best hidden in the depths of the psychology and concepts of cowards who are greedy for leaders to enjoy a big meal and are afraid of so-called risks. Isn't it? !

Let's take action-those soft-packing manufacturers who are still addicted to low-grade and inferior products, time waits for no one! ! !

Let's take action-although the winter in the market is very cold, but the flexible packers who are inactive and waiting for the warmth of spring, when the flowers bloom next year, where will you be except the burnt-out match stems in that place? Time waits for no one! ! !

-This paper is a paper version of My Opinion on Challenges and Opportunities Faced by Plastic Flexible Packaging Industry. In 2008 and 2009, the original text was published in full by the first packaging and Guangdong packaging professional media.

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Author: Mr. Chen

chentao2036@yahoo.com.cn