06/03/2020 – News / Packaging / Innovation / Flexible Packaging Awards / Uflex / India
UFlex scoops up 6 accolades for innovation at Flexible Packaging Awards 2020
UFlex Ltd – India’s largest multinational flexible packaging company and a global player in polymer sciences – has been recognised with six accolades (three golds and three silvers) at the prestigious Flexible Packaging Awards 2020, which concluded earlier this week in Bonita Springs in the US state of Florida.
Hosted by the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA), the prestigious competition is today among the most coveted in the industry, thanks to the outstanding calibre of packaging entries it receives each year, alongside the objective and methodical process adopted by its judging panel. The Flexible Packaging Awards 2020 concluded with 73 different participants nominating their hero innovations.
Remarking on UFlex Ltd’s impressive multiple win, Mr Anantshree Chaturvedi, Vice Chairman and CEO of FlexFilms International, said: “We are excited to have won these awards and are thankful to FPA for providing a platform that celebrates the hard work sowed by our behind-the-scenes R&D team, which builds path-breaking technologies and products that address our customers’ needs. As a responsible corporation, we continually strive for excellence in creating better technologies that help to save our planet, while strengthening our core competencies and paving the way for our future growth potential.”
Impressive awards
Uflex’s 4D Bags with Handle won a gold award in the ‘Shelf Impact’ category, while its Flex Asclepius™ PCR Based BOPET Films won silver for ‘Sustainability’. A silver award was also bestowed upon Uflex for its FLEXPET™ F-STF Ultra Soft Super Durable BOPET Film in the category of ‘Shelf Impact’.
Meanwhile, the firm’s FlexiTube for Bio Creative Labs (USA) was awarded three accolades – a gold for Packaging Excellence, a silver for Technical Innovation, and another gold for ‘Expanding the Use of Flexible Packaging’.
Below, we take a closer look at each of the award-winning product innovations.
4D Bags with Handle
With its 4D Bags, UFlex has developed as a pack that has the best of both worlds: It is a brick-shaped all panel registered bag/pouch with a handle and re-closable option, and which can stand or lie on its belly. It works like flexi-cartons and is an excellent carton replacement product. The stand-ability and shelf prominence of rigid is combined with the functionality of flexibles in this innovative ‘4D Pack’. All six panels of the bag are printed and can be made of different substrates. The look of the bag creates an excellent shelf-appeal, helping it immediately catch the attention of the end-user. For convenience, the bag can be carried from a top handle, while its re-closable option allows easy dispensing of the product through the zipper. The bag adds a fourth dimension to the product, making it a unique four-sided flat flexible packaging that offers lustre and barrier properties of the film on one hand, and prominent carton-like display on the other. UFlex’s 4D Bags with Handle have proved to be an exciting opportunity to revitalise the product and an ideal packaging solution for granular products like rice, coffee, tea, detergents, pet food, and more.
FlexiTube for Bio Creative Labs USA
UFlex conceived three variants of FlexiTubes used in Bio Creative Labs’ Super Foods Natural Hair Care products. These tubes provide 360-degree printing with soft matte finish and excellent reproduction of graphic images. The gold metallic lines on the tubes are created with the use of holographic layer, thus eliminating use of the foil stamping process. FlexiTubes makes use of reverse printing through the rotogravure process, which gives a true-to-life pictures on the tube.
FlexiTube was developed on the fundamentals of ABC – A (Aesthetics), B (Barrier) and C (Anti-Counterfeit). Firstly, regarding A (Aesthetics): Reverse printing and rotogravure process opens up a multitude of options for graphic designers and enables out-of-box thinking. In addition, the use of matte films and a holographic layer further adds to the aesthetic aspect of the tube. Next is B (Barrier): Since the process requires the printing operation to be done first followed by lamination, the barrier can be customised to the product’s requirement and this also allows use of various barrier films as standalone or in various combinations. And finally, C (Anti-Counterfeit): Many features like holographic patterns, security strip, multiple lens, and Fresnel lens are in-built into the tube’s structure, making it virtually impossible to duplicate.
Flex Asclepius™ PCR Based BOPET Films
As part of UFlex’s commitment towards sustainability, FlexFilms offers an entire range of PCR grade film featuring up to 90-per-cent post-consumer recycled PET content under the brand name Asclepius™. FlexFilms’ Asclepius™ film technology is a family of plain, treated, coated, high barrier and heat-sealable BOPET films based on 90-per-cent PCR polymer content. This film represents a 75-per-cent reduction in carbon footprint versus virgin BOPET grades and has the same properties as its twin substrate derived from fossil fuel. This film, composed of PCR content, is put to use in labels and packaging, thus creating a circular economy. This is the only 90-per-cent PCR BOPET film that has received the prestigious ‘Kingfisher’ Certification from SCS Global Services, certifying that FlexFilms’ PCR grade films contains a minimum 90-per-cent post-consumer recycled PET content.
FLEXPET™ F-STF Ultra Soft Super Durable BOPET Film
The soft touch film BOPET Film exhibits exceptional scratch-, heat- and scuff-resistance, giving it a unique and luxurious feel. The surface is ‘self-healing’ from most scuffing and is optimally durable.
F-STF film exhibits low gloss, excellent matte homogeneity with high haze (>90 per cent) and very high contact (see-through) clarity. This implies that the film can be readily reverse-printed by convertors to impart deep and rich graphic images. This film is FDA-compliant for a range of uses, making it further unique. Since its launch, the innovation has found use in luxury brand packaging, decorative packaging, labelling, graphic advertising banners, and high-end stationery products, amongst other applications.
An impressive global player
Since its inception back in 1985, UFlex has grown to become India’s largest multinational flexible packaging materials and solutions company and a leading global player in polymer sciences, with consumers spread across the world.
The firm boasts state-of-the-art packaging facilities at multiple locations in India, with an installed capacity of around 1,35,000tpa and packaging film manufacturing facilities in India, the UAE, Mexico Egypt, Poland and the US.
Integrated within its core business profile are allied businesses like Aseptic Liquid Packaging, Engineering, Cylinders, Holography and Chemicals, which further offer UFlex a superior edge over the competition.
UFlex innovates technologically superior packaging solutions for a wide variety of products, such as snack foods, confectionery, sugar, rice and other cereals, beverages, tea & coffee, dessert mixes, noodles, wheat flour, vegetable oil, spices, marinades and pastes, dairy products, frozen food, poultry. Beyond food products, the firm also supplies packaging solutions in a wide range of FMCG sub-categories, including soaps, detergents, shampoos, conditioners, anti-fog, pet food, pharmaceuticals, contraceptives, garden fertilisers, plant nutrients, motor oil, lubricants, automotive and engineering components, amongst others.
All UFlex plants are accredited with ISO 9001, 14001, HACCP and BRC certifications, while the company’s market presence spans the globe, with clients in over 140 countries today, including: the US, Canada and South American countries, the UK and other European countries, Russia, South Africa, the CIS region, and an array of Asian and African nations.
UFlex’s major international clients include P&G, PepsiCo, Tata Global Beverages, Mondelez, L’Oreal, Britannia, Haldiram’s, Amul, Kimberly Clark, Ferrero Rocher, Perfetti, GSK, Nestle, Agrotech Foods, Coca-Cola, Mars Wrigley, and Johnson & Johnson, amongst many others.
UFlex has been bestowed with numerous prestigious national and international awards for its products’ excellence, including Dow’s 2018 30th Awards for Packaging Innovation, and Sustainability Awards 2018, besides recently winning the ‘Packaging Company of the Year’ accolade from PrintWeek Awards 2019. Beyond that, UFlex became the ‘first company in the world to recycle mix plastic waste’ – a feat that earned it recognition at Davos Recycle Forum back in 1995.
For more details, visit: www.UFlexltd.com
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