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UPM Specialty Materials, Siegwerk and Uteco have jointly developed a paper-based secondary packaging solution aimed at giving brand owners a practical route to reducing plastic use. The structure combines UPM’s barrier base paper with Siegwerk’s CIRKIT BAR SEAL coating, applied using Uteco’s high-definition flexographic technology. The result is designed to provide moisture and grease resistance, heat-sealing performance and recyclability through standard paper recycling streams.
Marco Tramontano, Sales Director at UPM Specialty Materials, said that as packaging legislation such as the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation evolves globally, brand owners need practical ways to reduce plastic without compromising performance. The three-way collaboration is notable because it attacks the problem at the level of the material system rather than any single component. A barrier paper alone is not enough; it needs a coating that seals and an application method that scales, and aligning all three from the start avoids the integration headaches that often sink sustainable packaging pilots.
The companies report that joint production trials demonstrated that coating, printing and heat sealing can be integrated in a single pass. For converters, that integration matters enormously: collapsing several steps into one pass reduces time, energy use and production costs, while also shrinking the footprint of the line on the factory floor. In a market where sustainable formats are frequently more expensive to produce, a single-pass route is one of the few mechanisms that can close the cost gap with plastic.
Secondary packaging, the outer wraps and transit materials that protect goods without touching the product directly, is a sensible first target. It is less regulated than primary food contact and more tolerant of current paper-based barrier limits, which makes it an achievable win for brands under pressure to report lower plastic volumes. A paper-based secondary pack that performs on the line and recycles at end of life is an easier sell internally than a still-imperfect plastic replacement on the primary pack.
The CIRKIT BAR SEAL coating from Siegwerk is central to the concept. Heat-sealable barrier coatings are a fast-moving area of ink and coating chemistry, as suppliers race to replace extruded plastic layers with repulpable alternatives. Applied via Uteco’s flexographic technology, the coating can be laid down with the precision needed to keep barrier performance consistent across a roll, which is the difference between a pilot that works once and a format that runs every shift.
For UPM, the project reinforces the company’s push into specialty fibre materials with functional performance. For Siegwerk, it demonstrates how coating chemistry moves up the value chain from a supplied input to an enabling layer in a finished sustainable system. For Uteco, it shows converting equipment as an enabler of circular formats rather than merely a printer of plastic films.
Samples of the packaging will be displayed at UPM Specialty Materials’ stand, West Hall booth W-46118, at Pack Expo, giving converters and brand owners a chance to handle the material and assess it against their own requirements. Seeing and testing a paper-based wrap in person is a critical step before any brand commits a production line to a new format.
The collaboration also illustrates a wider shift in how sustainable packaging is brought to market. Rather than a brand inventing a specification and then hunting for suppliers, leading material, coating and machinery companies are pre-integrating their technologies so that the path from concept to commercial run is shorter and less risky. That de-risking is exactly what conservative packaging buyers need before they switch away from proven plastic.
As regulation tightens and consumers reward credible reduction claims, paper-based secondary packaging developed through partnerships like this one is likely to move from showcase to standard far faster than piecemeal, single-supplier efforts ever could.
Source: UPM / Siegwerk / Uteco via inkish.news
