In addition to being a Company that serves its Clients professionally on a daily basis, what positive impact can we have and in what areas? In other words, beyond our daily performance, what can make us stand out against others and make us proud at ASTAARA?

Helping Companies to replace plastic food packaging with paper-based solutions.

The Packaging Industry has developed plastic packaging over the years with creativity and brought to the market new shapes, elegant designs, an excellent and economically viable functional solution for food packaging. But now, more and more consumers are asking for increased sustainable choices.

Paper-based alternatives are offering a solution. Paper is the most recycled material in the world today and the recycling rate for paper is 72% in Europe, for example. Paper-based solutions are far more likely to be recycled and turned into another product at the end-of-life point.

But transition is not simple. Besides the aesthetic considerations that can be discussed at length, safety is a prime consideration. The availability of functional barrier papers is one step in the right direction (a functional barrier is a layer or multi-layer within food contact materials or articles which prevents the migration of substances from behind that barrier into the food).

However, the efficient sealing of the packaging is essential. Extensive leak testing & data need to be collected, both for the initial testing of the paper-based alternative and as far monitoring of the mass production is concerned. We hope to contribute to this evolution by offering with our products, a solution that does not use consumables, and renders automatic leak testing possible, simple and easy.

Reducing food waste by managing food expiration dates.

Food expiration dates are responsible for 10% of the 88 million tons of food wasted in Europe each year, and this is equivalent to a loss of 3 to 6 billion €.

Nearly all packed food has a best before, sell-by or use-by dates. In addition, more and more fresh products are delivered to Countries further away using Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP).

For a manufacturer, extending safely the consumability date of his products to the maximum depends on the confidence that he has in his packaging and that it is going to “hold” until the last day of the shelf life, and this without compromising the taste or safety of the product.

To achieve this, the Manufacturer has to ensure that the packaging will not leak, or very little in order to control the expiration date to the fullest, and this without having to factor in a large buffer.

Maximizing the expiration date will extend the presence of the goods on the shelves, enable markets further afield to be reached, therefore reducing the probability of the product being discarded too soon.

We hope to contribute to this evolution, by offering with the Astaara product range, a solution that renders management of the shelf life simple and easy.

Plastic Roll Alamy

Reducing plastic film usage.

Plastic film being sold by the weight, so it is understandable that little is done to convince Manufacturers that the thickest film is not necessarily the best way to optimize the sealing of a product.

But …

The quality of the sealing depends upon a number of factors, selecting the thickest film is not one of them. By specifically trying and testing the sealability of thinner films, a Manufacturer can actually achieve better sealing results, reduce plastic consumption and hence generate costs savings.

At Astaara, we hope to contribute to this evolution by offering with our product range a solution that renders the selection of the thinnest packaging material simple and easy, together with enabling extensive automatic leak testing of the finished product to ensure a high sealing’s quality consistency.