Fresh look with an innovative BYK Additive

Freshness is a mega trend in the food sector, even with convenience products. Consequently, refrigerated food units take up an increasingly greater part of the supermarket. That’s because consumers favour products that contribute to a healthy diet and that ensure their shelf life by refrigerating instead of adding preservatives. Modern packaging must, therefore, meet the growing demands for freshness and the call for ecological friendliness more and more.

BYK, a leading manufacturer of additives and measuring instruments for the plastics and coatings industry, is joining the packaging industry in this consumer trend for fresh foods and sustainable packaging with its new barrier additive BYKO2BLOCK-1200. This unique barrier additive has been specially developed for use in PLA-based food packaging. Due to the even distribution of the layered silicate platelets in the polymer matrix, a very effective barrier layer is built up, which brings about a significant reduction in gas and water vapour permeability. Hence, the food stays fresh longer in the packaging.

BYK will be presenting BYKO2BLOCK-1200 at Booth E 17 in Hall 5 during K 2016. The world’s no 1 trade fair for plastics and rubber will be held in Düsseldorf from October 19 to 26, 2016.

Another trade fair highlight will be the extended product portfolio for thermoplastic applications due to the acquisition of Addcomp B.V. Additives with different functionalities, such as flame retardancy, thermal and UV stabilisation, anti-fogging action and nucleation will be part of the product range from now on.