In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, butter paper was paired with square red paper and tied with a paper rope, which was the best packaging. Nowadays, the packaging has been renewed for a long time. With the expansion and development of the market, composite film flexible packaging has more directly changed the appearance of goods and entered the lives of consumers.

Guided by the strategy of sustainable development, China's composite film flexible packaging industry has also seized the two major priorities of green production and intelligent manufacturing, and through deep cultivation of subdivided fields, take a professional road to achieve a stable and advancing industry.

Packaging from "hard" to "soft"

End the "first-class products, second-class packaging, third-class prices" era

As the so-called "people rely on clothing and Buddha rely on gold", the importance of a good package for goods is self-evident. In the packaging industry, flexible packaging has become one of the most important packaging forms for shelf sales with gorgeous colors, rich functions, and various forms of expression. The so-called composite flexible packaging is a flexible packaging material formed by combining two or more materials with different properties, and a new type of high-performance packaging that can make full use of the advantages of each component material.

Data show that until the end of the 1970s, the composite film flexible packaging industry began to develop in China, which is an emerging industry. Prior to this, earthy yellow paper bags and iron boxes with colorful paint sprayed on the exterior once occupied the mainstream of the market. Short storage time and excessively heavy shells were the former's problems. With the rapid economic development, some inferior food packaging has flowed into the market. Simple and lightweight, because harmful materials are added to the finished packaging products, they have become "hidden killers" in consumers' daily lives and "white garbage" in environmental pollution. Packaging problems have always existed. Take foreign trade as an example, because of the "stupid and thick" external packaging, the annual loss caused by poor packaging is 10 billion yuan. Thanks to the reform and opening-up policy, as well as the development of science and technology and the development of the polymer chemical industry, the composite film flexible packaging industry has developed rapidly after its landing. According to data released by the China Plastics Processing Industry Association in June 2019, in 2018, driven by strong demand from downstream industries, China's composite film flexible packaging market has strong demand and relatively stable development. Through incomplete statistics and calculations by various parties, the composite film flexible packaging output in 2018 was about 4 million tons, the industry's main business income was about 92.75 billion yuan, and the number of companies whose main business revenue exceeded 100 million was about 80. The total business income is about 24 billion yuan, accounting for about 26% of the main business income of enterprises above designated size, and the industrial concentration has increased.

In the article "Status and Future of Sustainable Development of Composite Film Flexible Packaging Industry", some insiders said that a major contribution of the composite film flexible packaging industry to the market economy lies in the formation of an industry mainly based on color printing plastic flexible packaging through technological innovation. The related industries supporting it have promoted the transition from "hard packaging" to "soft packaging" in China, solved the long-standing problem of "first-class products, second-class packaging, and third-class prices" for Chinese goods, and created a large number of jobs. Promoting the prosperity and development of the commodity economy has become a new economic growth point.

Coexistence of development and environmental protection

Soft package industry actively promotes energy saving and emission reduction

As we all know, the substrates used for flexible packaging composites are mainly plastic films, followed by paper, metal foil and composite materials. Looking back at the development of the composite film flexible packaging industry, the main problem is energy saving, emission reduction and recycling of plastic products.

In fact, under the tremendous pressure of increasingly strict environmental protection policies, the entire industry chain is also actively seeking to find practical and feasible governance routes. With the market demand for energy saving and emission reduction in the soft package industry, various sources, processes, and end-use VOCs (volatile organic compound) treatment technologies have emerged at the historic moment, and many innovative achievements have continuously emerged. Laid a solid foundation.

According to the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, from the perspective of the governing unit of the Composite Film Special Committee, in terms of energy saving and emission reduction, composite film flexible packaging companies have basically been or are on the end of the treatment device, or solvent recovery, combustion heat energy Reuse, such as Shaanxi Beiren's EB printer, Zhongshan Songde's UV-LED solvent-free printer, and Guangdong Xinyouwei's nitrogen-protected all-UV solvent-free gravure printing technology from the source for the reduction of VOCs in the composite film flexible packaging industry It provides powerful basic equipment and brings hope for the green development of composite film flexible packaging industry. On the other hand, the wind reduction, energy saving and emission reduction projects that Shaanxi Yongchuang cooperated with Jinluo Wenrui Packaging, Wuxi Cathay Pacific and Qingdao Yiqing effectively solved the fugitive emissions problems that have plagued composite film flexible packaging companies for many years, and won praise from the industry. In terms of recycling, with the joint efforts of raw material manufacturers, substrate manufacturers, and enterprises, new products have been introduced to enhance the utility and recyclability of products, such as Dow and Guangdong Deguan New Materials Co., Ltd. The company and Fujian Kaida Co., Ltd. started cooperation to realize the commercial production and application of the innovative TF-BOPE in the field of liquid washing bags, which not only reduced the amount of packaging materials, enhanced the mechanical properties of the packaging bags, but also facilitated recycling.

Hold on to smart manufacturing

Composite film flexible packaging market is expanding

At present, with the needs of the development of the market economy, the demand for packaging in various industries has increased year by year, and has become more and more high-grade. The composite film flexible packaging not only has the advantages of bright colors and novel patterns, which is conducive to becoming an important medium for downstream customers' product promotion and brand establishment. It also has flexibility, high transparency, good gas and moisture resistance, low cost, and easy to use. This feature makes it suitable for both consumer and institutional products as well as industrial applications.

At the same time, the reporter learned from the China Plastics Processing Industry Association that the leading companies in the composite film industry have begun to deploy intelligent manufacturing. Through process reengineering, new intelligent storage systems, intelligent logistics systems, intelligent manufacturing execution systems, and information have been formed. Interconnected systems rely on technological progress and technological innovation to enhance product quality research and development, thereby enhancing product competitiveness.

According to a research report published by Research report Insights, the global average annual growth rate of flexible plastic packaging is expected to reach 6.7% from 2017 to 2022. It is expected that by the end of 2022, the market value of the entire market will reach approximately USD 2020 billion. Insiders have revealed that the future flexible film flexible packaging is not limited to independent small packaging in the global food industry, but also involves packaging design and branding of cosmetics, daily necessities and other fast-moving consumer goods. The flexible film flexible packaging market is expanding.

As Zhu Wenwei, the chairman of the China Plastics Processing Industry Association said, new technologies, new formats, new models, and new consumption will profoundly change the living environment of the composite film flexible packaging industry. Only contracted enterprises can expand their development space continuously. Only by deeply cultivating the subdivided fields of soft packages and taking the road of specialization, can the soft package enterprises survive in a stable way.