Continuous innovation and investment reap their rewards

The comprehensive range of PVC mono films and coated PVdC barrier films that Perlen Packaging offers today could not have been achieved without continuous innovation which simultaneously paid due and full regard to the tried-and-trusted to date. In 2023, too, the company generated sizeable sales through the high-barrier products that have been developed over the past few years. And with encouraging customer demand for films ensuring strong protection of high-value medicines and the associated market success of its Perlalux® ultra products, Perlen Packaging continues to steadily further expand its capacities for manufacturing and slitting its films in Europe, China and North and South America.

Most blister packs today consist of a plastic and an aluminium component. But with the economical separation of the different materials used in packagings for waste disposal purposes still in its early stages of development, Perlen Packaging is currently working on a single-material blister pack which would be correspondingly easier to process in recycling terms.

“Developing a single-plastic blister pack is a challenging undertaking, because the final product and the production process have to meet so many conditions,” says Lars Kirchhoff, Chief Sales Officer at Perlen Packaging. “So for 2024 we’ve scheduled a whole series of trials of single-material plastic blister packs and their machine runnability. And we should be substantially assisted here by a new thermoforming machine that we’re installing at our Perlen site.”

In addition to its product innovations, Perlen Packaging also puts a firm focus on improving its existing production processes and procedures – including increasing the degree of their automation. Sustainability, too, is a prime and constant concern. “Following an innovation established in 2023, we now obtain all the heating we need for the production processes at our site in Müllheim, Germany, via green electricity instead of from the carbon-dioxide-intensive gas that we previously used,” says Chief Operating Officer Boie Karstens. “This will now enable us to rely solely on green energy in our Müllheim operations. And at our Perlen site, we plan to put a new totally automated production line for manufacturing high-quality packagings into operation in 2024.”