GERHARDSHOFEN, Germany — WEILBURGER Graphics GmbH, a coating, flexo inks and adhesive manufacturer headquartered in Gerhardshofen, Germany, introduced a waterproof coating for flexo coating applications and used the coating to create a waterproof drink cooler.

To demonstrate the properties of this coating, the company designed and made a special drink cooler to be used with bottles from the Loscher Brewery GmbH & Co. in the nearby town of Münchsteinach, Germany. This folded carton packaging made with four pieces comes equipped with a cooling tray and can take up to 500 g of crushed ice or cold water. To optimize the cooling, the box was designed in a way that a removable cover achieves a long-lasting, continuously hermetic cooling chamber in which two 330 ml bottles from Loscher Brewery are contained.

The demo cooler was produced together with the Martin Spiegel GmbH Carton Factory, that helped with the construction, printing and finishing, as well as the graphic design company RIEKER GmbH + Co. KG, which was responsible for the screen-printing finishing.

The outside of the cooler was coated with SENOSOFT^® WB MATT COATING FP NDC 350210 and the inside with the new SENOLITH^® WB BARRIER COATING 350025 as splash protection. In an offline process, a screen-printing finish was applied to both pieces. On one pass, a high-gloss SENOSCREEN^® UV ANTI-SLIP LACQUER 363055 was applied to highlight the letters and bottle motifs around the box. On another pass, SENOSCREEN UV RELIEF LACQUER WATER DROPLETS 363056 was applied to create a contrast with the previously applied SENOSOFT WB MATT COATING FP NDC 350210.

The two cardboard pieces for the tray and the separator were printed in the same color scheme using offset 5/5 and coating. In terms of coating, the exterior was coated using SENOLITH WB GLOSS COATING FP DC 350179 and the interior with the new SENOLITH WB BARRIER COATING 350025.

Arno Dürr, Sales Director at WEILBURGER Graphics GmbH, commented about the demo packaging and the new barrier coating, “Based on the feedback from our customers, especially in the food and frozen food sector, we have looked for environmentally friendly and food safe solutions to make waterproof cardboard packaging without using films, PE and similar materials. Our approach, to warrant this function by way of a special barrier coating, was a great success. We assume that a large part of all laminated cardboard solutions in the market as well as some special plastic-based solutions can be developed and substituted with this approach.” Bastian Pinsenschaum, Head of the Technical Service, added, “With the completed drink cooler demo project, for which we once again want to thank our partners Loscher, Spiegel Packaging, Rieker, MetäBoard and IST, we want to demonstrate the quality of the new barrier coating in an extreme application without forgetting to also showcase our other products through the smart application of optic, haptic and functional coatings in this packaging. The cooler not only works in an outstanding manner, it also looks great.”

The new SENOLITH® WB BARRIER COATING 350025 is currently undergoing an approval process for the application on food packaging with direct food contact properties and will therefore predictably also be suitable for primary packaging of fruit, vegetables, animal food, plants and frozen foods.

Learn more at www.weilburger.com.