During the last years the trend in flexible packaging has gone to transparent films. Food producers and consumers have become more and more convinced of the advantages of transparent packaging materials. Food producers’ benefit from the transparency, to present the appearance of the product, which gives the consumer the impression of a fresher, better and higher quality product. Transparency opens new possibilities of marketing; the product itself becomes a part of advertising. Also the aspect of food safety gets more and more important. Transparency allows food packers to use modern quality control equipment, like visual inspection systems for seals and also for metal detectors.

But not all transparent films do offer the necessary properties, which are required for food packaging, such as good barrier against oxygen, water vapour and also aromas. These properties must be maintained during different packing, handling, shipping and storing conditions. Classical barrier materials offer good barrier properties under certain conditions, but only inorganic barrier materials are independent from climatic influences.

Alcan Packaging started already in 1990 with the development of a transparent inorganic barrier film by installing a pilot line in the R&D Center Neuhausen / Switzerland. After 10 years of research and development the industrial production line for SiOx coating was installed at the Alcan Packaging plant in Kreuzlingen / Switzerland. Today it is the most modern and most efficient production site for transparent inorganic barrier material in Europe. Alcan’s inorganic barrier films are well known in the market under the trade name CERAMIS®.