With its "Inert Barrier Technology", Greiner Packaging has successfully extended the shelf life of food in plastic containers to a new level. The extension of food shelf life has so far mainly been achieved through ultra-high temperature processing or the addition of preservatives. This technology enables an extension without resorting to these methods. Greiner Packaging is the first world-leading company to introduce this process in the plastic cup packaging sector.

        The award-winning "Inert Barrier Technology"
     Greiner Packaging has every reason to be delighted with winning the Swiss Packaging Award 2015 (the most innovative packaging award). The innovative "Inert Barrier Technology", which extends the shelf life of food to a new level, has won the "Technology" and "Sustainability" category awards.
    The Swiss Packaging Institute (SVI) awards the Swiss Packaging Award to products that have performed outstandingly in the packaging field. The aim of the competition is to recognize the creativity and innovation skills of the Swiss packaging industry. This year, Greiner Packaging participated for the 46th time and won one of the seven coveted awards. Greiner's "Inert Barrier Technology" beat the competition in the "Technology" category, a performance to be proud of.
    Tobias Strasser, General Manager of Greiner Packaging, emphasized: "I am very pleased to see that our great efforts to drive the development of the packaging industry have been rewarded in this way. The award shows that our development path is correct and encourages us to continue to push our research forward."

     In addition to winning the technology category award, it also ranked in the top three in the "Sustainability" category, making Greiner Packaging the first company to enter the top three in both categories in the same year. With the advantage of winning the Swiss Packaging Award, Greiner Packaging is now eligible to enter the WorldStar International Packaging Competition.

       The barrier layer extends the shelf life of food
    With its "Inert Barrier Technology", Greiner Packaging has successfully extended the shelf life of food in plastic containers to a new level. The shelf life of food has so far mainly been extended through ultra-high temperature processing or the addition of preservatives. This technology enables an extension without resorting to these methods. Greiner is the first world-leading company to introduce this process in the plastic cup packaging sector.

     The technology involves adding a barrier layer to the plastic cup. The process also takes advantage of the outstanding properties of silicon dioxide: the cups are placed in a vacuum chamber. Then oxygen and a gas containing silicon are introduced into the chamber, and a plasma is generated using electrodes. A coating is formed on the cup, which is described as a "covalent bond" layer relative to the sealed inner layer and the plastic. The SiOx layer produced in this way is "chemically inert" and has very low reactivity. This significantly reduces the permeability of oxygen and hydrogen. Since the barrier layer does not react with any external factors, it also significantly improves the aroma protection performance. Moreover, since the silicon dioxide coating can also be used on cups made of highly transparent materials, it can also make the product stand out visually; it has no impact on transparency. For sustainability benefits: a longer shelf life can help reduce unnecessary food waste. And the coating does not affect handling or recycling in any way, nor does it affect the weight of the packaging. 
    Strasser emphasized: "Last year, we established a technology center in Switzerland to continue promoting the development of the barrier industry and introduce inert barrier technology. All Griner's customers can benefit from this technology." 
    Greiner is also investing in another technology in the global barrier market: "multi-layer barrier technology". This plastic packaging technology for food is used in extrusion, film extrusion, followed by thermoforming for cups and bowls, as well as injection stretch blow molding and extrusion blow molding for bottles and containers. With this technology, highly transparent products can be produced and hot filling is possible.