Italian cheese maker uses barrier packs for grated cheese

The Grana Padano cheese is similar to its more familiar Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and is a traditional Italian food from the Middle Ages. This is a kind of granular hard cheese (whose name Grana has the meaning of "grain"). Today, Grana Padano cheese, whether sliced ​​or crushed, is popular all over Italy and other countries in the world.

Previously, consumers needed to open the wrapper of the wedge cheese, cut the cheese into pieces by hand, and store them in another container. Now they have a simpler option to put the pre-chopped Grana Padano cheese in a soft bag that can be opened, sealed, and kept fresh on the uneaten portion.

MasterPack, a packager based in Montvalle, Italy, knows that Italian families want to maintain their strong local food traditions while also spending as little time as purchases and cooking preparations like American consumers. In order to enable consumers to make an exquisite diet faster, MasterPack has created a new packaging solution for cheese makers. This consumer-friendly soft pack uses Zip-Pak's Inno-Lok barrier zipper, which combines the features of a press-to-seal zipper to enhance moisture and oxygen barrier protection.

Maria Ippolito, MasterPack's export manager, said the new packaging has been welcomed by consumers. She said: "For those products that require easy access and storage, this new packaging method is very much in line with the tastes of modern consumers. It provides a kind of isolation protection, which is very important for the long-term preservation of cheese. We believe that this new packaging will definitely help the broken cheese brand to achieve better performance.”

Italian consumers demand high quality foods, so MasterPack needs to provide an upright package that will keep the freshness and taste of the cheese optimal. It has been several years since the first chopped cheeses were brought to the market, but discerning consumers often criticized their textures as less than those larger pieces of cheese that needed to be bought home and chopped. Ippolito believes that this is mainly due to the general vacuum or shrink packaging can not fully preserve the cheese taste and aroma.

In order to meet the needs of consumers, MasterPack examined several ways of zippering before making the final decision. Ippolito explained: “Isolating oxygen can prevent food from decaying. Barrier property is very important to keep food fresh and delicious, so we chose Zip-Pak's Inno-Lok barrier zipper, which combined with barrier flexible packaging, effective Kept the contents fresh."

Zip-Pak's barrier-pack zipper technology provides optimum convenience and extends shelf life for a variety of products that require moisture and oxygen barriers. By blocking moisture and oxygen for a longer period of time, degradation and deterioration of the product are prevented. Inno-Lok zipper with insulation properties, its structure includes a low-density polyethylene side edge and a layer of moisture and oxygen can be isolated vinyl alcohol (EVOH). The film around the zipper is marked with a hole to make the bag easy to open. Zip-Pak said that the EVOH layer can maintain its isolation characteristics. The MasterPack claims that despite the influence of the bag material and other factors, the shelf life of the bagged crushed cheese is six months longer than that of a normal packaged cheese.

For Grana Padano cheese, Masterpack produced a multi-layer film constructed of a 95 micron thick polyester/foil/PE web on which eight colors can be printed with aniline. In addition to the 1,000-gram bale size, Masterpack also offers a re-sealable, barrier-type zipper pack material in a variety of sizes suitable for 100, 200, and 500 grams of food packaging. Masterpack's Masterzip pre-assembled zip film web can be both pasteurized and chemically sterilized. The bag material can be printed on digital plates with flexography and up to 8 colors can be selected.

Hudson-Sharp provided the equipment needed by the MasterPack to zip all one side of the bag material. The packaging materials processed by MasterPack can be shipped directly to the cheese processing plant where they can be processed into bags. This material was wrapped around a forming tube, the bottom and back were sealed, filled with nitrogen, then filled with a vertical form-fill-seal device, and the top opening was finally sealed.

Ippolito said: "This solution is ideal for packaging oxygen-sensitive products because it does not require significant capital investment and does not require sacrificing the speed of the machine or the integrity of the package. Pre-assembled zippered film roll When it comes to packaging cheese, its speed is no different from those of pre-installed zippers. This is a clear advantage for off-line systems (independent systems)."


Source: Industry Packaging Solutions