Doypack: Natural material can also effectively protect flavors

You're probably familiar with this: when you open a new package - whether it's coffee, cookies or other treats - your nose is treated to the scent of the contents. To prevent this from escaping even before consumption, these foods are tightly packaged so that neither air nor moisture or light can penetrate. But what materials can provide this protection of natural flavors without harming the environment too much? This is where some interesting alternatives come into play.

Aroma - what is meant by it?

The term "aroma" comes from ancient Greek and translates as "spice", "perfume" or simply "fragrance". It is used to describe a specific taste or smell caused by mixtures of substances or chemical substances.

In the case of a whole series of natural aromas, this can be traced back to a single organic compound. Nevertheless, aroma substances can be assigned chemically to different organic substance classes, such as esters, aromatics, terpenes, ketones or aldehydes.

In industrially manufactured products, odorants are often added in the form of concentrated solutions in order to save natural aroma sources or to achieve a constant aroma. If the inherent aroma is not sufficient, nature-identical aroma substances are also used in addition to natural ones.

This works for many flavors, but not for all. However, natural flavors can also be subject to fluctuations if, for example, the weather does not support the desired quality of the flavor supplier or other influences have an effect.

The bottom line is this: The production of flavorings is growing - both natural and synthetic. It is therefore always worth taking a closer look at good-smelling foods.

Aroma-tight packaging such as Doypacks - which materials are used?

Protect the aroma of your goods with Doypacks.

When you look around in the supermarket, you will see that products with strong natural flavors, such as coffee, cigarettes or beverages, predominantly have a metallic shine: Here, aluminum composite foils are still widely used.

They consist of several layers such as plastic, paper and aluminum in order to be impermeable not only to light, air and water, but also to optimally protect the aroma of the respective product. What happens to the packaging? It ends up in the recycling bag, because you will certainly not succeed in separating it into its individual components. But what happens next?

Aluminum - the problem is complex

On the one hand, the light and conductive metal is extremely valuable and is needed in a wide variety of areas. From a global perspective, these include the following sectors, for example:

Transport - 29 percent
Construction - 22 percent
Packing - 15 percent
Power generation - 12 percent
Mechanical engineering - 9 percent
durable goods - 9 percent

On the other hand, the poor climate balance of aluminum weighs extremely heavily. Although the light metal is frequently found as an element in the earth's crust, it occurs exclusively in chemical compounds such as silicates. To extract the light metal, the ore bauxite has to be mined in open pits.

If it is then heated together with caustic soda, it releases both aluminum oxide and toxic red mud. In the next step, the aluminum oxide must be melted down and treated in an electrolysis process to obtain aluminum as a result - all in all, not a clean business.

To make matters worse, bauxite is mined mainly in Australia and China, Brazil, India, Guinea and Jamaica. This is at the expense of important natural resources such as virgin forests and rainforests. Also problematic are the quantities of red mud released at a ratio of 1:6.

For every ton of aluminum, up to 6 tons of this cocktail consisting of chemicals, heavy metals and caustic soda must be disposed of - in landfills, rivers or lakes.

This destroys the flora and fauna. There are ways of "deactivating" this red mud and recycling it, but this consumes a great deal of energy, as does aluminum production itself. The health risks are not even mentioned here.

Aluminum composite foils and recyclability - is a solution in sight?

Other disadvantages of this packaging, which should not be underestimated:

Printed aluminum packaging such as cans or lids are usually melted down. This can release organic toxins from the imprints, which are extremely long-lasting.
If aluminum is processed into composite packaging, recycling has been complicated up to now. Since the individual materials are difficult to separate, this packaging is usually incinerated - the aluminum is lost.

At this point, however, a ray of hope is emerging:

The recycling of composite materials made of aluminum, paper and plastic is the aim of a new recycling process with which the German company Saperatec plans to process waste volumes of up to 18,000 tons per year from 2023, according to packaging-journal.de. In this process, special separating liquids are used to realize the delamination and separation of the waste into the respective components.

The dissolved layers can then be sorted and sent for reprocessing. The aluminum foil recovered in this way goes to aluminum producers, for example, and the polyethylene is further processed into regranulate. If this development, which is based on the interaction of specially designed machines and chemical processes, becomes established, an enormous demand could be met.

Aroma-proof packaging such as Doypacks - are there no alternatives?

Yes, there is - and with increasing demand. Palamo relies on Doypacks and other food packaging made of natural paper coated with an EVOH barrier layer and polyethylene. EVOH stands for ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer. This copolymer is formally composed of ethene and vinyl alcohol, i.e. two monomers.

These packaging materials have been certified according to HACCP. A brief explanation: The abbreviation stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points and refers to a hazard analysis that identifies and controls critical control points. As a result, the quality is so high that these doypacks and bags can be used for food and pet food without any problems and optimally protect natural flavors.

Another plus: We print this packaging on the inside of the film laminate so that neither you as the consumer nor the food comes into contact with the printing ink. On the one hand, this prevents unwanted substances from getting into the food, and on the other hand, the print is effectively protected.

In Germany, this composite material is unfortunately not yet recyclable, with a ratio of 11 percent PE and 89 percent paper - Italy or Austria are a step ahead of us. This is a pity, because the uncoated natural paper not only shows enormous advantages with the coating, but also has a pleasant feel

By the way: What are doypacks?

Are you familiar with stand-up pouches? Here's a little anecdote we don't want to deprive you of: Frenchman Louis Doyen was the director of a packaging factory in St. Germain au Mont D'or in 1963. He was struggling with the problem that fruit juices or olives were difficult to pack in standard pouches.

The process should be safe on the one hand and beneficial to shelf life and natural flavors on the other. His requirement: packaging should be transportable upright, but lighter than pots or bottles and also resealable. His solution: the Doypack - a revolution in the industry!

Initially, doypacks were designed horizontally, then vertically, but the principle remained the same. Such a pack consists of three parts - a front and back and a circular bottom part. This folds into a W as soon as the doypack flattens out. What makes it special is not only its shape and comparatively low weight, but above all the possibility of using different materials for the parts.

In this way, in addition to the rigidity of the entire packaging material, the protection of the contents and their natural flavors can also be taken into account. Today, the Doypacks are resealed with a zipper or pressure seal for this purpose.

And: Louis Doyen not only patented the idea for the construction of the Doypacks (DOYen PACKaging), but also developed the machines for production and packaging - a mature achievement!

Conclusion: Natural flavors protected in Doypacks - also feasible with natural materials

Whether it's crunchies, nuts, or coffee - aroma-tight Doypacks are exceptionally practical: they come in handy formats, are correspondingly light, and are easy to stack. This packaging format opens up many possibilities that Mr. Doyen may not have had in mind in 1963. Likewise, the question about the use of the material may not yet have been so relevant for him.

Plastics were cheap, comparatively light and, above all, could be processed at will. At that time, the question of environmental protection was still answered with the saving of packaging material, which cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Today, we are much more critical, the trend is clearly going in the direction of natural materials - but these naturally have their limits in terms of properties. If natural flavors are to be optimally protected by the packaging, this will not work without composite materials. However, these do not have to contain an aluminum layer in every case to deliver the desired results.

Otherwise, the ecological problem already arises in the extraction and production of the light metal required in many sectors of the economy. Although a solution is emerging with regard to the recycling of aluminum composite foils, the enormous amount of energy required for extraction and the exposure to hazardous chemicals remain unaffected.

Natural paper Doypacks with sensible plastic coatings can be used to package a wide range of food products while retaining their natural flavor - but by no means all of them. There is still a need for research and development, and above all there is a lack of sensible recycling processes that enable a genuine circular economy.

However, we are certain of one thing: Louis Doyen has really brought a groundbreaking development to the market. Chapeau!