Nampak invests in Africa’s flexible packaging market

Nampak Flexible has made a double investment in technology to advance Africa’s flexible packaging market.

 

Nampak has installed a seven-layer co-extrusion film line from Windmöller & Hölscher (W&H) and a Baasel Rofin laser scoring system. Both pieces of equipment have been installed at Nampak Flexible’s Pinetown plant.

 

The W&H line has been chosen to help Nampak Flexible overcome capacity restrictions in its traditional three-layer co-ex film production, where work has had to be contracted out.

 

Nampak Flexible said that, with global markets demanding specialty films and an increased shelf-life for products, there has been a trend towards moving to three-layer extruders to produce stronger and more functional films. While world trends are towards high-barrier films and superior moisture vapor, five-layer machines can’t do laminates and high-barrier films at the same time.

 

The new W&H seven-layer co-ex line, the first in sub-Saharan Africa and the most advanced machine of its kind in Africa, allows Nampak Flexible to manufacture to world-class standards on high-barrier films.

 

It added that meat and cheese products are normally packaged in seven-layer films in South Africa, but all of this material has previously had to be imported. With the W&H line, Nampak Flexible is the first company to produce seven-layer packaging in South Africa.

 

The Pinetown plant had to be physically modified to accommodate the 18m-tall machine, with the height designed to ensure that the polymers being processed, which reach 200°C when leaving the extractor, cool down by the time they reach the apex of the machine.

 

The laser scoring system can burn one million holes per second that are consistent in shape, diameter and spacing. Hole diameters are from 50µ up to 300µ.

 

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