Australian brand adopts Japanese pouch technology

A striking display of premium-end flexible pouches caught my eye on the Takigawa stand at TokyoPack 2012. Takigawa Corporation (known for most of its 60-year history as Takigawa Chemical Industries until January this year) is an end-to-end provider of flexible pouches – from product design to film production, printing, lamination and bagmaking.

Company president Hiroyuki Takigawa told PKN the company is the largest flat-bottomed pouch or quad-seal pinch-bottom pouch converter in Japan, producing around 50 million units in 2011. A new plant in Vietnam has now added 30 million unit capacity, bringing total capacity to 80 million to serve the Japanese and export markets.

Among the numerous pouch and closure options on display was Takigawa's flat-bottomed pouch with three key benefits: they're stable on standing, even with lightweight content; have a large internal capacity yet use around 12 per cent less film than traditional stand-up pouches, and pack and display in a manner similar to boxes, so reducing shelf footprint. While this style of pouch is not new to the market, what Takigawa has done is take the flat-bottomed application a step further, and developed the EZ Shake pouch, which has holes perforated in the flat base, covered by a peel-off layer of PET.

Potential applications are numerous for any dry product that requires even dispersion through a shaking action – think chicken feed, baby powder, icing sugar – as the size of the holes can be varied. It's also ideal for product that can't be touched by humans, like ant poison. In this case, the base sealing layer is peeled off, the bag placed on the ground and ants find their way to the 'food' through the holes, emptying the bag in about ten days.

According to Hiroyuki Takigawa, the EZ Shake pouch has been commercialised in Australia, supplied through the company's Australian agent Swiss Pack, based in Melbourne. The customer is South Australian horticultural company Munns which is using it for the aptly-named Shake 'N Grow variant of its SunSmart Lawn Seed Mix brand.

Brendan Yee, general manager of Swiss Pack Australia, confirmed that Munns launched this single-use pack only a few months ago through Bunnings and supermarket retail channels. Yee says the initial uptake has been so strong Munns has already placed a repeat order and for increased volumes.

The Shake 'N Grow pouch is a two-layer 12 micron PET/PE laminate, providing moisture barrier protection so the lawn seeds don't germinate in the bag.

Yee also confirmed there has been further interest from a local chicken feedstock supplier for the same style of pouch.

Yee believes the use of pouches is increasing in Australia and will be given a boost as the cost of biodegradeable materials reduces.