Whether producing primary packaging for food, non-food or liquids, or secondary/tertiary packaging to collate and protect goods during transportation, the industry in the Middle East region and globally demands excellent pack hermeticity, abuse resistance, and aesthetics to ensure maximum protection for the contents, enhanced shelf-life and appeal and a positive consumer experience.

Dow, one of the world’s largest packaging material suppliers, has a broad portfolio of polyethylene, functional polymers, polyurethane and acrylic adhesives, which offers great potential for its customers’ market differentiation.

“As part of our market-driven strategy, we are focused on maximising our innovation value in attractive markets,” says Sami Mainich, Dow’s sales director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey (MEA&T). “We are therefore enhancing our footprint in key markets across our region with dedicated commercial and technical service and development teams to support customers’ needs locally,” he adds. 

The company operates through a network of four large hubs strategically located across MEA&T in the following locations: Dubai (UAE), Durban (South Africa), Gebze and Iskenderun (both in Turkey). “We are also investing in new, state-of-the-art production facilities which are significantly increasing our footprint and our capability to serve strategic growth markets,” Mainich says.

According to him, the key market trends driving growth in plastic packaging globally include: a growing population, increased urbanisation and a rising middle class, as well as the increasing demand for material performance and functionality, sustainability, cost effectiveness, brand differentiation, shelf appeal and consumer convenience. 

Issues of particular relevance to this part of the world include the role of packaging in food security and preservation, the increased need for recycling and sustainability, and the adoption of energy recovering technologies to reduce landfill use, he says.
 

Mainich: the continued growth in demand for lightweight plastic packaging will be a key trend

Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics works hard to develop packaging solutions that can address these types of issues, in order to drive change in the plastic packaging industry and create solutions that produce less waste, require less energy and deliver more effective market solutions to address the variety of consumer demands and infrastructure.

“The continued growth in demand for lightweight plastic packaging will be a key trend in the consumer flexible packaging market for years to come. Driven by the demand for greater convenience, cost-effectiveness and sustainable products, we will increasingly see brands offer flexible pouch packs with innovative shapes, closures and dispensers to complement or replace its traditional rigid plastic bottle formats,” Mainich says. 

The PacXpert packaging technology is a great example, he points out and elaborates: This innovative packaging technology offers the transition from traditional rigid containers to flexible packaging pouches between 2 and 20 litres in size. The design allows for an efficient use of space (it ships and stores flat) and is easy to transport. Once filled it allows for easy pour and high product yield.

“The key advantage of flexible packaging is its low intrinsic weight, which ensures lower transportation overheads and reduces the overall supply chain costs. These incremental weight savings not only provide cost benefits, but also reduce transportation costs and overall breakages,” he says.

Other solutions include tie layers and barrier multilayer films that help improve package integrity preventing food spoilage and protecting goods during transportation. Dow’s portfolio of resins and adhesives also allows for light-weight packaging, recyclability and a reduction in resource consumption. 

Within the food packaging segment, Dow’s Sealution peel polymers offer easy-opening for trays and pouches, improving the consumer’s experience when opening a package. The new generation extrusion coating resin, Agility EC 7000, is particularly appreciated by customers who look for higher coating speed at lower gauges, in combination with excellent adhesion, sealing and optical properties. Amplify Functional Polymers are also popular as they are designed to suit a broad range of adhesion requirements and different production processes making them a very versatile choice for a broad range of packaging applications. From Dow’s adhesives portfolio, Mor-Free solvent less adhesives are enabling laminators to add line capacity quickly and economically, without concern about volatile organic compound (VOC) issues and air handling equipment, for a wide range of packaging applications. 

Within the beverage sector, Dow resin formulations for multilayer premium collation shrink film applications are designed to help brand owners create high shelf-appeal, and offer fantastic opportunities for film converters to design a film that helps suit a specific application. Elite and Dow LDPE offer excellent processing characteristics. 

“The resins are designed to deliver top-level performance and enable you to tailor according to your exact packaging needs. Innate resins address some of today’s more challenging packaging performance gaps with an unprecedented balance of toughness and stiffness in combination with excellent tear and puncture resistance, processing ease and improved sustainability profiles,” he explains.

Within the industrial packaging sector, the growing importance of logistics and regulatory demands for safe and sustainable packaging led to the development of Elite AT for stretch hood and stretch wrap films, offering high load stability, package integrity, weatherability and durability so goods arrive safely at their final destination. Elite AT 6101 is particularly in demand as it offers excellent holding force and puncture resistance compared to EVA-based film formulations, while Elite AT 6111 allows 20 per cent thickness reduction compared to incumbent super power stretch wrap formulations while maintaining the same technical properties.

Enjoying a broad presence in the Middle East and Africa, Dow’s teams of experts are continuously working towards more collaboration across the value chain. Through its market-driven Pack Studios capabilities – a global network of labs, experts and collaboration tools – Dow provides unique and advantageous positioning for its customers and partners to accelerate the development of the next generation packaging solutions.