Abstract:

Glass jars and metal cans have long been used as a safe and effective way to store and distribute shelf-stable food. Their position in the marketplace is a result of years of safe supply and familiarity to consumers, technical advances and supply chain optimization to control costs and lack of credible alternates.

In this paper Kortec and Kuraray will discuss, the market opportunity for a credible alternate container technology, the market, supply chain and consumer technical requirements that will determine credibility of an alternate. Description of co-injection technology from Kortec , fundamentals of EVOH as a barrier material, development of high barrier advanced EVOH technology from Kuraray, results of experiments to determine the feasibility of using high barrier advanced EVOH in PP-EVOH-PP co-injection molded containers for packaging of shelf-stable foods.

The Authors will provide conclusions to the studies and suggestions on further work required to commercialize the technologies discussed.