Madura Tea, Australia’s leading tea producer, has taken a significant step toward reducing its own impact on the environment. All packaging materials that were previously based on metalized OPP (oriented polypropylene) have been switched to flexible packaging paper. Together with Gundlach Packaging Group and Koehler Paper, Madura Tea has found the ideal packaging paper for its products in the form of “Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure MOB 72 gsm,” which has a mineral oil barrier and offers protection against MOSH/MOAH. After several promising tests, the products are now available on the Australian market. 

“Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure MOB” flexible packaging paper boasts ideal barrier properties and consists of 100% certified virgin fiber pulp. Gundlach Packaging Group and Koehler Paper provided Madura Tea with a range of test materials from the NexFlex® product range. 

“Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure MOB, which is made from 100% virgin fiber pulp and is therefore suitable for contact with food, impressed everyone involved thanks to its outstanding barrier properties,” explained Yevgen Zolotkovski, Sales Manager for Flexible Packaging Papers at Koehler Paper. 

Rüdiger Brinkmann, Senior Sales Manager at Gundlach, added: “Although it’s an uncoated paper, the printing results are excellent and highlight the new environmentally friendly concept.” 

Like all other Koehler NexPlus® papers, Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure MOB is also heat-sealable, and its strength properties make it ideally suited for further processing on all commercially available packaging machines. 

“Madura Tea has made the right decision in demonstrating its environmental responsibility by using recyclable materials from sustainable sources,” said Carsten Loemker, Lead Engineering/Technology at Madura Tea.

In Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure MOB, Koehler Paper is offering a packaging paper with a significantly reduced carbon footprint in comparison to conventional plastic packaging, and it also boasts the significant benefit of being 100% recyclable. 

With the NexFlex® product range, the research and development team at Koehler Innovation & Technology, together with the experts at Koehler Paper, developed a unique and fully recyclable generation of flexible packaging papers. The aim here is to replace plastic in packaging by using so-called barrier paper wherever possible. The range covers a broad spectrum: It includes standard coated and uncoated papers used in laminates for pouches, sachets, and other applications, making them suitable for a wide range of packaging for food and non-food products. The next generation of papers for flexible packaging are sustainable barrier papers with functional surfaces for product-specific protection (Koehler NexPlus®). The NexFlex® product family also includes papers coated on one side with good dimensional stability and high smoothness (Koehler NexCoat®), as well as uncoated paper with a natural appearance (Koehler NexPure®). Various flexible packaging papers from Koehler Paper were awarded a score of 19 out of a possible 20 points by the environmental service provider Interseroh, along with the “Made for Recycling” seal.

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