Walter Turci, Innotech Director and Coexpan R&D Director

Every month, we present 5 facts about a member of European Bioplastics. This time, Walter Turci, Innotech Director and Coexpan R&D Director, shares some interesting insights on his company.

5 facts about Coexpan, Spain

  • Coexpan, the rigid packaging business unit of Grupo Lantero, is present in 8 countries with 12 industrial facilities and more than 1100 employees. Grupo Lantero, partner in packaging and printing solutions, is one of the world leaders in the packaging and graphic arts sector. The Group is made up of four business units Coexpan, Emsur, Leca Graphics and Estellaprint, aimed at the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, consumer and industrial sectors. The group’s main objective is to build a better world through innovation, sustainability, people development and operational excellence.
  • Coexpan and Emsur through its collaborative innovation centre, Innotech, are continuously working on different projects focused on creating rigid and flexible packaging solutions with real long-term benefits, balancing our environmental commitment with the consumers’ demands to develop the packaging of the future.
  • ECOEXPAN: a product family of coextruded rigid sheets for thermoforming applications. All the ECOEXPAN products are compostable and partially sourced from non-fossil origins (up to 100%, depending on the product requisites). Grupo Lantero ECOEXPAN can be formulated with or without high barrier to oxygen, always maintaining full compostability. Some of the ECOEXPAN formulations have been developed for very demanding applications in terms of thermal and mechanical resistance; for example, coffee capsules, where ECOEXPAN can replace the PP/EVOH/PP standard structure. ECOEXPAN can be supplied also as preformed cups or containers, for specific projects. All ECOEXPAN products are food contact approved.
  • Liquidwood trays: Grupo Lantero developed this packaging material to propose a preformed tray recyclable in the paper stream; this range of products is intended to be sold mainly for non-food application, even if it is food contact approved. The raw material is non fossil sourced, biodegradable, and also disposable in paper stream to be recycled alongside paper. It is a polymer obtained from wood fiber waste, with thermoplastic behaviour. It has good heat resistant properties (the final article is microwaveable) and similar properties to traditional plastics, such as strength, durability, and resistance to moisture. Due to the renewable non-fossil origin of the material, it is carbon neutral.
  • Compostable flexible films and bags: at Innotech we developed different options of compostable flexible packaging solutions, that can be used to produce bags, stick packs or pouches. These products are multilayer laminated films, containing at least two components. We can offer a paper-based product family (EMFULL PAP), and a bioplastic-based solution. In both cases, the final packaging is fully compostable. Both options can be printed with the conventional techniques for the best product presentation. Both product families can be formulated with different levels of OTR and WVTR, to be adapted to different product packaging application. All these packaging solutions are food contact approved; anyhow they are functional also for non-food packaging applications.