Aluminium packaging foil packaging

Foil Packaging

Different alloys and gauges of aluminium foil are used for different packaging applications, with most alloys including up to around a 3% mix of iron, silicon and manganese, with tiny amounts of copper occasionally added for extra strength.

The thinnest foil used for wrapping chocolates may be only 6 microns thick, with household wrapping and cooking foil between 11 and 18 microns, lidding foil between about 30 and 40 microns, and foil for foil containers generally between 40 and 90 microns.

Making foil containers
The aluminium coil delivered from the rolling mill will have been produced to exact specification of alloy, gauge, finish, and width.This coil, or reel, is then fed into the press for precision cutting and forming by tools with tolerances of less than one hundredth part of a millimetre. The finished containers are so light that they are air-blown from the press, before being stacked and packed.

Foil container production

Why use foil?

Temperature tolerance: from frozen to hot oven without bending, or becoming brittle, or leaving a 'taste'

Quality: home-cooked quality, crisp pastries

Production efficiency: easy for food companies to handle and dispense hygienically; light and strong

Recyclable

Most alufoil containers such as takeaway and ready meal containers, all sorts of bakery containers, and catering trays, have folded or creased sides, and are known as standard containers.

Smoothwall containers, such as those used for chilled foods, as well as long-life ambient products such as jams and premium pet foods, are formed and drawn in a similar way to aluminium drinks cans

Foil lids for yogurt pots and dairy tubs
Reels of foil are delivered to the packaging converter to exact alloy, gauge and width specification, with heat-sealing lacquer applied to one surface.

Why use foil?

Shelf life: foil prevents top-light from the chiller cabinet being absorbed by the food and spoiling it

Production efficiency: foil can be cut and dispensed accurately

Good looks: nothing matches the metallic glitter of aluminium in a lid design to suggest a top quality product

Recyclable

The reels are then printed to brand design in sophisticated, up to eight-colour process machines, using water-based inks, then dried, lacquered, and cut to shape using multi-headed tools, before delivery to the customer.

After filling the plastic dessert cups on automated lines, the lids are simply applied and sealed with a thermal process.

Chocolate wrapping foil
Reels of foil are delivered to the packaging converter for printing and slitting to the exact width required - anything from a large chocolate bar, down to individual chocolate width. Printed designs include those suitable for all sorts of novelty shapes such as Easter rabbits and eggs, and Christmas tree decorations, where foil's deadfold characteristic enables quite complex chocolate shapes to be covered accurately. The foil is often very thin - as little as 6 micron gauge - and the precision of the handling machinery is critical.

Why use foil?

Shelf life: foils barrier properties keep chocolate fresh longer

Quality image: consumers associate foil with the finest quality chocolates

Dead fold: foil stays folded and is easy to open

Recyclable

At the chocolate factory, the printed foil is fed from the parent reel, cut to length and laid on a conveyor bed. The moulded chocolate is dropped into the centre of the foil sheet, and folding arms wrap the item, before brushes smooth the foil into the contours. Chocolate bars will then have a paper wrapper applied, before the item is moved on for packing.

Housefoil
Rolls of foil bought for cooking and wrapping foods in the home are generally from 11 to 14 microns thick, with the thinner gauges used for economy products. To prepare the foil for sale, large rolls of foil - weighing up to 300kg - are ordered to correct alloy, gauge and width, and fed through a re-wind machine.

Why use foil?

Temperature tolerance: the only material to protect foods in a hot oven

Hygiene: foil does not support micro organisms

Tast: foil is inert and imparts no taste to foods

Recyclable

The foil is led through rollers onto a cardboard core, and cut to length, before being packed into the dispensing box, sealed and coded for traceability.

Can-making and filling