Substitution of plastic (PE, PP, PET) by paper in flexible packaging applications.
Overview · What matters in this field right now?
In short
Research
The closure is a synthetic film, whatever the pack is called
1 / 8
No document here shows paper sealing to itself at commercial speed. The seal is a polymer film formed on the sheet, and the filings describe it explicitly. Double Will Packaging builds a cellulose core with a heat-seal layer of biodegradable copolyester on each face, made by condensing terephthalic acid, adipic acid, 1,4-butanediol and dimethylolpropionic acid to a weight-average molecular weight of 70,000–200,000 g/mol, then crosslinking the cellulose interface with an aziridine agent at 2% of cellulose solids and thermosetting it. Dongguan Ruize splits the job across the two faces instead: water-based ethylene acrylic acid for water and oil resistance on one side, a heat-seal coating on the other, on either thin or thick base paper.
The headline number is paper content, and the sellers say what it leaves out
2 / 8
The figure brands are being sold is renewable share, not plastic avoided. UPM, Siegwerk and Uteco launched their paper for secondary packaging on the claim that paper content can reach up to 90%, and in the same breath positioned it as "a practical entry point", with the primary packaging continuing to safeguard product integrity. That is an unusually candid piece of product marketing: the seller states the application where the claim is safe and the layer that still does the protecting.
Strategy
The committed capital is in coaters and base sheet, not in new chemistry
3 / 8
Read the capacity announcements as a set and they all spend on the same step: getting a thin layer onto a moving web, or preparing a web to receive one. Mondi's €16 million line at Solec exists to make a barrier grade it reports at under 0.5 for both oxygen and water vapour. Walki rebuilt a site around what it calls The Bridge, an extruder joined to glue lamination and dispersion coating, and named the European legal framework as the reason. Ahlstrom's LamiBak Flex is sold as a surface for someone else's coating, metallisation or extrusion, with primer demand reduced.
Research
Three ways to get the layer onto the web, with different capital behind them
4 / 8
The dominant route is wet coating at the paper machine, dried inline. Mondi's €16 million line at Solec is the clearest case: the product runs on existing horizontal and vertical form-fill-seal equipment without speed loss, which is the claim that decides whether a converter has to buy anything at all.
Market
What is actually documented is regulatory status, not performance
5 / 8
Across the launches, the attributes that come with evidence are compliance attributes. Michelman's Nuvita grades are sold as microplastic-free, SUPD compliant, 100% bio-based in dry film, and designed for dual end-of-life outcomes across recycling and composting. Koehler's NexPlus OGR is presented on a high grease and oil barrier achieved without PFAS. Mitsubishi Chemical markets its SoarnoL coating as much for oil resistance as a PFAS substitute as for gas barrier. Lactips' original launch paired plastic- and PFAS-free wording with recyclability work done alongside CITEO.
Strategy
The largest single cheque is written against aluminium foil, in a format that already gets collected
6 / 8
Tetra Pak is putting €60 million into a pilot plant in Lund for a barrier that replaces the foil layer in aseptic cartons, with production from the first quarter of 2027. The company's own description of the structure matters more than the headline: the paper-based barrier carries an ultra-thin metallised coating, takes paper content to roughly 80%, and lifts renewable content to 92% with plant-based polymers. A first commercial use with white milk in a one-litre carton ran in Italy in April 2026, and the company frames roughly €100 million a year of packaging investment through 2030.
Research
The barrier is a stack, and each layer buys exactly one property
7 / 8
Nobody in this record tries to make fibre hold out oxygen on its own. The structures are layered and each layer has a job. Huhtamaki laminates at least five layers, 20 to 150 micrometres total, of aliphatic polyester — PHBH, PBS, PLA or PHA — onto moulded or fluff pulp, then heats the assembly to 145–195 °C to crosslink the polyester and lift grease resistance and the water barrier together. Mitsubishi Chemical coats paper with an ethylene vinyl alcohol solution, marketed as much for oil resistance as a PFAS substitute as for gas barrier.
Market
Where performance is claimed, it is claimed as a list of products
8 / 8
Rapids Paper + Packaging expanded Ecova Barrier by naming the categories it suits: cereals, rice, grains and pasta; dry mixes and powders; frozen fruit and vegetables; chocolate, chips, crackers, granola bars and fruit snacks. Koehler's Interpack display ran the same way, showing tea and pasta through to cosmetics on a stand built with a food manufacturer.
The starch route is being sold as a grease answer; watch whether anyone claims oxygen for it
No barrier value, seal strength or line speed came with the 20 October starch collaboration.
Signals to watch
The 90% paper structure is a secondary-pack claim, and the share will not survive a move to primary
The partners call the 21 October structure an entry point because the primary pack still protects the product. Paper content is a substitution metric. It says nothing about moisture or grease barrier, and nothing about how the structure runs when it carries food rather than a carton.
Signals to watch
A commercial barrier paper now sets the benchmark the consortium's suppliers have to beat
Ecova's target list overlaps the small-format, grease-sensitive formats the brand consortium was formed around. The catalogue entry shows the substrate can be specified today. It does not show that it fills at speed on an installed vertical form-fill-seal line, which is the step where most conversions stop.
Signals to watch
The PaperFlex consortium will publish acceptance criteria before it publishes a material
A group this large, funding joint trials, will agree what counts as a pass before it agrees on a supplier. The Foundation's own framing sets the bar it has to clear: paper flexibles that work at the performance, scale and cost the members need do not yet exist.
Signals to watch
The economics moved toward plastic this quarter; watch whether the fourth quarter confirms it
Plastic films fell double digits against the previous quarter while one-side coated paper rose about 2%, with every material monitored still above its year-earlier level. The survey puts the paper rise alongside significantly higher energy costs across the quarter. A converter underwriting a paper line is betting on a spread that moved 24% in one quarter.
Innovation activity
Market & Regulatory Context
October brought six documents to this area, and five of them are about money. Two report the same quarterly raw-material price survey, one is a paper maker's cost comparison, one is a trade feature on paper-versus-plastic trade-offs, one is a compliance database update, and one is a methods paper on ranking packaging materials. No new law, no new tax and no new corporate commitment appeared in the area this period.
Where the 11 landed
Market & Regulatory Context6
Downstream Brand Adoption2
Midstream Conversion & R&D2
Upstream Materials & Coatings1
In the market
Earlier updates
September 2026 · 21 new documentsDouble Will Packaging 1 · Huhtamaki 1