SABIC, Mars Petcare and Huhtamaki Develop Sustainable Retort Pouch

Mars Petcare will adopt a new sustainable retort pouch developed in collaboration with SABIC and Huhtamaki to package wet pet food products for the SHEBA brand. The pet food packaging uses certified circular polypropylene (PP) from SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio, and is manufactured by Huhtamaki.

In November 2020, Mars, Incorporated announced its ambition to introduce food-safe recycled content polypropylene into its pet food packaging. The objective of the collaborative effort between the three companies is to prevent packaging from entering the waste stream, and to ensure plastic packaging is designed, produced, used and recycled more sustainably.

Wet food retort packaging is associated with demanding thermal processing conditions to ensure the highest food quality. The joint team resolved technical challenges to receive approval for a multi-layer film manufactured by Huhtamaki with SABIC PP BCT18F impact copolymer for retort pouches.

Huhtamaki uses the certified circular polymer as a phthalate-free and gel-controlled film layer, which lends the flexible pouches high impact strength and puncture resistance even at low temperatures down to negative 20 degrees Celsius. For wet food packaging, the pouches must also be capable of withstanding a retort temperature of 135 degrees Celsius for 60 minutes. Even higher thermal resistance of up to 160 degrees Celsius may be needed in freezer-to-oven applications.

SABIC’s certified circular polymers form part of the company’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio and services for circular solutions. The offering also includes design for recyclability, mechanically recycled products, certified renewable polymers from bio-based feedstock and closed loop initiatives to recycle plastic back into high quality applications and help prevent valuable used plastics from becoming waste. Read more about SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio at https://www.sabic.com/en/sustainability/circular-economy/trucircle-portfolio-and-services.