I prefer Doypacks to bottles, but during my gig as a structural package designer, the corporate marketing higher-ups were adamant that the American public would never accept them. So we churned out bottle after bottle after bottle.
It's heartening to see China, with all of their one-billion-plus consumers, readily willing to put the the Doypack into common consumer use. A Chinese company called Huishan Dairy has begun using Swedish company Ecolean's Air Aseptic containers for their 240mL milk containers. ("Aseptic," in the beverage packaging world, just means "sterile.")
The Air Aseptic has two innovations, one ergonomic, the other a materials innovation. First off, pouring liquid from a Doypack is never easy as there's no good place to grab; Ecolean solves this by blowing an air-filled fin into the side of the packaging, providing a convenient handle. Secondly, in search of an alternative to plastic, Ecolean discovered they could use a minimum of polyethylene and fill out the bulk of the packaging with calcium carbonate--a/k/a chalk. Turns out the stuff is good for more than putting schoolkids to sleep; Ecolean has figured out how to extrude and layer the stuff into an efficient, not to mention bright white, Doypack.
Here Pat Reynolds, Vice President and Editor of Packaging World, gives us the rundown on the package and how the materials are put together:
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