Last December SPRING interviewed Alessandra Fernicola, Marketing & Sustainability Manager at SAES Coated Films, to know more about innovative solutions for sustainable packaging.
SPRING is the Italian Cluster for Circular Bioeconomy, bringing together networks and value chains of the biobased industry to foster an innovative, competitive, and sustainable industrial and academic ecosystem, representing the community’s interests with institutions and promoting synergies at local and global levels.
- How and why was the coated film division of SAES created?
The SAES group has been active for over 80 years in the invention, design, and production of advanced materials for a wide range of applications and markets: from the historic cathode ray tube of the first televisions to scientific instrumentation, from lamps to consumer electronic devices. The common thread that links SAES’s core competencies is gas management in applications where the hermeticity of a closed volume must be maintained. In this context, the application of SAES’s skills to the packaging industry was a natural evolution. Packaging as well is a system where the internal atmosphere must be controlled and maintained because it impacts the packaged product, especially if it is food. SAES had the expertise to study the issue and propose solutions for food packaging. In 2016, SAES acquired a Lombard company, Metalvuoto, which had developed high-level skills in coating and metallization technologies. From the synergy between SAES and Metalvuoto, SAES Coated Films was born in 2018, a company today specialized in high-barrier plastic and bio-plastic films for food and non-food packaging.
- What do you do and what solutions are you working on? During our talk you named COATHINK, a water-base coating improves the shelf-life by protecting the product from the air.
In 2019, we coined the brand COATHINK® to represent the skills that best identify the philosophy of SAES Coated Films: strong and consolidated experience in coating and a scientific approach (“think”) in solving technological challenges imposed by packaging. This approach has proven particularly valid in the field of sustainable packaging, where the use of new materials requires a systemic approach, capable of foreseeing and solving the necessary adjustments for real implementation in the industry. Thanks to the experience accumulated in the field, today we are able to provide a wide family of high-barrier films designed for recyclable or compostable flexible packaging.
- What is your intervention strategy? I understand that you build strong partnerships with complementary players along the supply chain. Is this a consolidated methodology?
SAES Coated Films produces films for lamination. Our clients are therefore converters, who transform the films into finished packaging. Our barrier technology is different from more traditional solutions because it is a surface coating. This is advantageous because the barrier material ultimately impacts only 1% of the total weight of the packaging, which is very interesting from the perspective of lightening structures and using fewer resources. On the other hand, it is a new solution for some converters. Experience has taught us that a fundamental piece of innovation is operating in a collaborative supply chain. The exchange of information and participation in homologation processes are important moments to understand the difficulties and applicability of new materials and accelerate the implementation of new projects. It is precisely thanks to a collaborative supply chain that in 2020 we contributed to the realization of the first compostable barrier packaging introduced to the market.
The packaging is made by a paper external layer, laminated with our compostable bioplastic high-barrier film. Thanks to our surface treatment, the pack protects in an optimal way the product from oxygen and humidity. Our film, as well as the finite packaging, are certified by TÜV Austria for industrial compostability according to European Standard EN 13432.
To achieve this result was possible only thanks to the commitment of the whole supply chain in pursuing what seemed, at the time, utopic: having a sustainable solution that features high-quality performances, without trade-offs.
This is a winning model when you make innovation: you need to believe in it and to be open to collaborations.
- What projects are you working on, what are the most advanced research areas, and what are your “dreams in the drawer”?
Today we are working on expanding our line of compostable products: we already have several barrier functionalities, but we want to expand the “sustainable functionalities” as well. We are therefore working on the development of solutions that have home compostability. In this case too, a joint effort is necessary: we can modulate the properties of the barrier coating, but we must work together with all the actors, from the granule producer to the film maker, to the converter, to be able to create an industrializable and certifiable solution.
- From a skills perspective, do you find what you are looking for on the market in terms of partners and collaborators, or do you prefer to build the necessary skills internally?
Over the years, SAES Coated Films has also transformed and renewed its internal skills. We have learned a lot from the market and have made sure to keep up with the skills our clients need. In some cases, there has been an internal evolution of the necessary skills; in other cases, we have acquired new collaborators who combine field experience with a strong inclination for innovation.
- From a regulatory perspective, what difficulties do you encounter, what bottlenecks, and what rules do you see as potential opportunities?
Today, all attention is focused on the new European PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) and especially on the delegated acts that will follow and specify the sustainability guidelines in packaging and the areas of use of compostable packaging. There have been many months of uncertainty that have slowed down innovation and investments in the entire industry. Today we have a somewhat clearer vision of what the new regulatory framework will be, and we hope to experience a renewed momentum towards new sustainable solutions. Our vision is clear: sustainability in packaging is a necessity, and compostability represents an excellent interpretation of it. We think, for example, of small-format packaging, such as stick-packs and sachets. Even if they were designed according to the strictest recyclability criteria, today in most plants they would not be recycled. This is because one of the first steps in the process is sieving: it serves to remove most of the food residues and non-plastic contaminants that would interfere with the recovery of the polymer of interest. Now, a small format (less than 5 cm wide) falls through the sieve and is therefore excluded from the material stream that goes to recycling. How advantageous would it be instead to design the same packaging but in compostable material! In this case, the dimensions do not preclude “recycling”: it would be organic recycling. The use for the consumer remains unchanged; they will only have to dispose of the packaging after use in the organic waste bin. With a barrier material like that of SAES Coated Films, compostable and certified, it would be possible to maintain the packaging performance unchanged, thus without shortening the product’s shelf life. This, in our opinion, is an important development area for biodegradable and compostable materials in packaging, and we believe that the European Commission is also becoming aware of it.
Read the interview in Italian on SPRING website: CLICK HERE