Replacing a plastic tray with moulded fibre sounds simple.

Until the food goes in.

Then the packaging has to resist:

water,

oil,

grease,

water vapour,

sometimes oxygen,

and, depending on the format, heat.

It may need to seal.

It may need to survive refrigeration or hot filling.

And after all of that functionality is added, the fibre still needs to separate efficiently when the package reaches a paper recycling mill.

That is the engineering problem behind a new partnership between Sun Chemical and Archipelago Technology Group.

The companies are combining Sun Chemical’s liquid barrier and resistant coatings with Archipelago’s Powerdrop non-contact coating technology for flat paper substrates and three-dimensional moulded-fibre packaging.

The first coating approved under the partnership, BARV656: VAPORBLOC DFC HOTFOOD, has completed the companies’ testing and validation process and is now commercially available.

At first glance, this is a coating partnership.

The more important story is what the companies are trying to control:

the amount of non-fibre material required to make paper behave like a high-performance package.

Because for paper packaging, adding barrier is easy.

Adding barrier without damaging recyclability is much harder.

Paper’s strength is also its weakness

Cellulose fibre has several characteristics that make it attractive as packaging.

It is renewable.

It is stiff.

It prints well.

Paper and board already move through widely established collection and recycling systems across Europe.

Cepi reports that European paper packaging recycling rates are already above 80%.

But cellulose is naturally hydrophilic.

Untreated fibre does not automatically provide the moisture, grease and gas resistance required by many food applications.

That is why traditional paper packaging often gains functionality through:

polymer extrusion,

film lamination,

wax,

dispersion coatings,

fluorochemical treatment,

or combinations of several layers.

Those additions can transform an ordinary fibre structure into a useful food package.

They can also make the recycling process more complicated.

The challenge is therefore not simply to make paper resist water.

It is to make it resist water temporarily during use while still behaving like paper later in the recycling mill.

That tension sits at the centre of the Sun Chemical–Archipelago collaboration.

The barrier layer can determine whether the paper advantage survives

A fibre pack can contain 90% or 95% paper and still create problems during recycling.

The remaining material can influence:

pulping,

fibre separation,

screening,

stickies,

reject volume,

process-water contamination,

and the quality of recovered fibres.

Cepi’s recyclability guidance explicitly notes that coatings, laminates and other functional additions need to be designed so they do not interfere with paper recycling.

4evergreen’s updated 2026 Circularity by Design guideline goes even further, dedicating separate guidance to barrier coatings and polymer content for conventional, deinking and specialist paper recycling mills.

That is why a statement such as:

“95% paper.”

does not answer the complete recyclability question.

The remaining 5% matters disproportionately if it behaves badly inside the recycling process.

Sun Chemical and Archipelago are trying to reduce that 5%

The partnership is built around a relatively simple proposition.

If a barrier chemistry can deliver the required functionality at a lower coat weight, less foreign material has to be added to the fibre package.

Sun Chemical says that, when its barrier coatings are applied using Powerdrop, total coating weight can be kept well below 5% of the package weight.

That could be commercially significant.

A heavy polymer laminate can represent a substantial share of a paper-based structure.

A very thin functional coating may provide a route to the same application with much higher fibre content.

But there is an important regulatory distinction.

Below 5% coating does not automatically equal PPWR Grade A.

That claim needs more qualification than some of the current industry coverage gives it.

PPWR Grade A is not simply “95% paper”

The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation establishes three recyclability performance grades.

Grade A: at least 95% recyclability

Grade B: at least 80%

Grade C: at least 70%.

From the applicable 2030 deadline, packaging will need to achieve at least Grade C.

From 1 January 2038, Grade C will no longer be enough, leaving Grades A and B eligible for market placement.

That means a package made from 96% fibre and 4% coating might appear mathematically close to Grade A.

But PPWR does not simply ask:

What percentage of the package is paper?

It asks how much of the packaging unit is recyclable under defined design-for-recycling criteria.

Those criteria will examine how the complete package performs within the relevant collection, sorting and recycling system.

The detailed material-specific methodology is still being implemented through delegated acts under Article 6.

So a low coating percentage is useful.

It is not a certificate.

The coating has to survive a second test: repulpability

This is where paper-specific testing becomes important.

A barrier coating can satisfy the consumer application beautifully.

No leaking.

No grease staining.

Good moisture resistance.

Good heat sealing.

And still create unacceptable rejects during repulping.

Cepi’s laboratory test method is designed to simulate key stages in a conventional paper recycling mill:

pulping,

screening,

and sheet formation.

The current Version 3, published in 2025, can be used with the 4evergreen recyclability evaluation protocol to evaluate whether new paper-based packaging structures remain compatible with conventional recycling.

That is a much stronger recyclability test than material composition alone.

The ideal barrier needs to perform in two opposite environments.

During product use, it should remain stable.

During recycling, it should release or disperse in a way that does not prevent efficient fibre recovery.

This is one reason barrier development is increasingly sophisticated.

More fibre content does not necessarily mean more recovered fibre

Consider two hypothetical packages.

Package A:

96% paper
4% coating.

Package B:

92% paper
8% functional material.

At first glance, Package A looks clearly better.

But suppose Package A’s coating causes substantial fibre bundles to remain unrecovered during screening.

Suppose Package B’s functional material separates cleanly, allowing almost all cellulose fibres to be recovered.

The real recycling yield could be much closer than the package composition implies.

This is precisely why recyclability increasingly needs to be measured rather than inferred.

A recent 2026 academic review of fibre-packaging recyclability warned that apparently strong laboratory yield figures can also conceal degradation in recovered fibre quality, making industrial validation important when evaluating novel coated structures.

So the industry’s next challenge is not only:

How little coating can we apply?

It is:

How much usable fibre returns from the complete package after recycling?

Powerdrop tackles the application side of the equation

Archipelago’s contribution is not the coating chemistry itself.

It is how the coating reaches the package.

Powerdrop is a non-contact system designed to dispense relatively viscous liquids as controlled droplets rather than relying on conventional contact coating.

The technology uses a rotating drum containing precision nozzles. The coating is loaded into the system and expelled as droplets toward the target surface.

Archipelago says this allows high transfer efficiency with very little bounce-back, drift or overspray.

This is particularly interesting for moulded fibre.

A flat paper web is comparatively easy to coat.

A three-dimensional food tray is not.

It contains:

corners,

side walls,

rims,

curves,

and changes in geometry.

Applying a thin, continuous barrier over those surfaces without leaving pinholes or over-applying coating in some areas is a much more difficult process-control problem.

Pinholes matter because barrier failure is rarely averaged

A package does not care about average coat weight if there is one uncoated hole.

This is one of the hidden difficulties in barrier packaging.

Imagine 99.9% of a tray has excellent oil resistance.

A tiny pinhole at the base still allows grease through.

The consumer sees a stain.

The package has failed.

That means barrier performance depends not only on how much coating is deposited but also on:

uniformity,

coverage,

surface wetting,

drying,

and defect control.

Archipelago has repeatedly positioned Powerdrop around producing pinhole-free protective layers on moulded fibre while minimizing coating waste.

This makes application efficiency important.

If uniform coverage can be achieved at a lower total coat weight, the manufacturer can potentially gain both:

better material efficiency

and

better recyclability.

That is the logic behind the partnership.

The chemistry and the machine increasingly have to be developed together

This mirrors a wider shift in packaging technology.

Historically, a chemical supplier might formulate a barrier coating.

A converter would buy it.

The equipment supplier would then try to make the coating run.

That separation becomes inefficient when coat weight itself is part of the sustainability target.

Now the coating chemistry influences:

viscosity,

droplet formation,

surface wetting,

drying,

coat uniformity,

and seal performance.

The machinery influences:

how much chemistry is required,

where it lands,

how evenly it covers,

and how much becomes waste.

Those variables cannot always be optimized independently.

Sun Chemical and Archipelago are therefore effectively integrating formulation development with application engineering.

That may be more important than the individual products themselves.

BARV656 is not actually a completely new coating

Another useful piece of context is that BARV656 predates this alliance.

Sun Chemical’s 2025 sustainability reporting already described BARV656 as a water-vapour and liquid-barrier coating used in paper-based fruit and vegetable baskets.

The company said those applications had reached major grocery retailers and described the resulting structures as recyclable and repulpable.

That changes how the new announcement should be understood.

The innovation is not:

Sun Chemical has invented BARV656.

It is closer to:

Sun Chemical and Archipelago have qualified an existing barrier chemistry within a defined high-efficiency coating process and are commercializing that combination more broadly.

That is potentially more useful to converters.

A chemistry alone is only half a production solution.

What is still missing are quantitative barrier numbers

The announcement says BARV656: VAPORBLOC DFC HOTFOOD has completed testing and validation.

But it does not disclose the full performance dataset.

For example, no public data are provided in the announcement for:

water-vapour transmission rate,

oxygen transmission rate,

grease resistance,

Cobb values,

coat weight in g/m²,

heat-seal initiation temperature,

seal strength,

or repulping yield.

That does not mean the performance is weak.

It means the public information is not sufficient to compare the system quantitatively with:

PE extrusion coating,

PLA,

EVOH-containing structures,

other dispersion coatings,

or competing aqueous barriers.

For technical packaging buyers, those figures will matter more than broad phrases such as “high barrier.”

Different foods need very different protection.

“High barrier” means nothing without an application

A hot-food tray containing fried chicken has different requirements from:

a salad punnet,

a frozen-food tray,

a fruit basket,

a coffee cup,

or a dry snack carton.

One might need excellent grease resistance.

Another may need water-vapour resistance.

Another needs oxygen barrier.

Another primarily needs heat sealing.

One coating may not optimize all of those properties simultaneously.

So paper packaging should avoid the same mistake previously made with the phrase “recyclable.”

“High barrier” is not one property.

It is a collection of different performance requirements.

This is why the partnership’s ability to combine different Sun Chemical coating chemistries with one application platform may eventually be more important than BARV656 alone.

Optional heat sealing is strategically important

The alliance also mentions heat-seal capability.

That deserves attention.

Replacing plastic film with paper does not help much if the package cannot be closed at commercial speed.

Many food-packaging systems rely on heat sealing because it provides:

speed,

tamper evidence,

leak resistance,

and compatibility with automated filling lines.

Adding sealability to paper often requires another functional layer.

And every additional layer can affect recycling.

So if barrier and sealing functionality can be integrated efficiently at low coat weights, there is potential to reduce the complexity of the total structure.

Again, the important metric is not merely whether the chemistry can seal.

It is:

How much material is required to achieve the necessary seal window and strength while preserving paper recycling performance?

The alliance is targeting both 2D and 3D packaging for a reason

Flat paper and moulded fibre represent related but very different manufacturing markets.

For 2D materials, barrier coatings can be applied to:

paper,

paperboard,

sheets,

and webs.

Converters then:

print,

die cut,

fold,

form,

or seal

the structure downstream.

Moulded fibre reverses part of that logic.

The three-dimensional geometry already exists before the functional barrier is applied.

That makes contact coating methods much harder.

A non-contact application process therefore has a particularly obvious value proposition in 3D.

This could be relevant as moulded fibre tries to expand beyond relatively simple applications such as:

egg cartons,

protective inserts,

and dry-food trays

into more demanding food-service packaging.

The barrier requirement rises sharply as the package enters those new applications.

Moulded fibre cannot rely on sustainability credentials alone

Moulded fibre has attracted substantial investment because of its renewable feedstock and potential compatibility with paper recycling.

But those benefits do not automatically make it the best package.

It still has to compete with plastic on:

weight,

barrier,

speed,

cost,

nesting efficiency,

product protection,

and machine compatibility.

Sun Chemical describes moulded fibre as potentially having lower carbon impacts than many conventional packaging formats.

The word potentially matters.

A fibre package may be heavier than the plastic structure it replaces.

Drying moulded fibre can consume significant energy.

Coatings add processing.

Freight can differ.

The environmental outcome therefore depends on the complete application and production route.

A low-weight coating can improve that equation.

It does not by itself prove that the final fibre package has a lower carbon footprint.

PPWR increases the value of getting the design right early

This is where the timing of the partnership matters.

PPWR generally became applicable across the EU in August 2026 and establishes a staged transition toward harmonized recyclability requirements.

From the applicable 2030 deadline, packaging must fall within Grade A, B or C.

By 2035, recyclability assessments add a recycled-at-scale dimension.

From 2038, only Grades A and B remain eligible for placement on the market.

Packaging development cycles can last years.

A tray designed in 2026 may still be in use after 2030.

A platform introduced across multiple filling sites can remain longer again.

That means converters cannot simply optimize for today’s national recycling rules.

They increasingly need to anticipate future EU-wide criteria.

But Grade A does not have exclusive “permanent market access”

This is another statement from the source that needs tightening.

Grade A represents ≥95% recyclability.

But Grade B, at ≥80%, also remains eligible after the 2038 tightening under the current PPWR framework.

Grade C is the grade that loses market eligibility from 2038.

So describing Grade A as uniquely providing “permanent market access” overstates the distinction.

A more accurate description is:

Grade A is the highest recyclability performance class; both Grades A and B remain within the market-access threshold after 2038 under the current regulation.

That is less dramatic.

It is legally cleaner.

“Lowest EPR tax” also needs qualification

PPWR does connect recyclability performance to producer responsibility fees.

Article 6 requires producer financial contributions under EPR to be modulated according to recyclability performance grades after the relevant implementing framework is in place.

That creates a strong incentive to design toward higher grades.

But calling the result the “lowest EPR tax rate” is too definite.

EPR contributions are fees or financial contributions, not a single EU tax.

And the detailed modulation system depends on the implementing framework and national EPR structures.

So the defensible conclusion is:

better recyclability grades are intended to influence EPR fee modulation.

The exact euro-per-tonne benefit for a specific Grade A paper tray is not yet something the alliance announcement proves.

The 5% number is still strategically useful

None of this means Sun Chemical and Archipelago are wrong to focus on coating mass.

They are targeting a real design constraint.

The smaller the non-fibre fraction becomes, the easier it may be to preserve:

fibre yield,

paper classification,

sorting behavior,

and recycling compatibility.

It also reduces consumption of coating chemistry.

From a material-efficiency perspective, the logic is strong.

The important editorial distinction is:

below 5% is a design objective, not an automatic regulatory pass.

A package still needs to demonstrate how that coating behaves.

Industrial recycling is ultimately a yield problem

This leads to perhaps the most useful way of evaluating coated fibre packaging.

Do not ask only:

Is it recyclable?

Ask:

How much usable secondary fibre does the recycling mill recover?

A paper mill cares about yield.

If 100 tonnes of packaging enter a pulper and a large fraction becomes rejects, the package is less circular than one that returns most of its fibre to usable stock.

High reject loads also create:

disposal costs,

screening demand,

yield loss,

and potential process contamination.

This is why Cepi and 4evergreen have spent years developing standardized recyclability methodologies.

The industry needs common evidence rather than every supplier defining “repulpable” differently.

The quality of the recovered fibre matters too

Even yield is not the entire story.

Recovered fibres need enough quality to replace virgin or other recycled fibre in another paper product.

A coating that causes excessive fines, contaminants or bonding problems may reduce that value.

The emerging PPWR framework increasingly reflects this principle by defining recyclability around obtaining secondary raw material of sufficient quality to substitute primary material.

That is a higher standard than simple physical recovery.

A package shredded into an unusable mixture has technically been processed.

It has not achieved meaningful material circularity.

Paper’s advantage lies precisely in the ability to recover fibre repeatedly.

Barrier technologies need to protect that advantage.

This may push coatings toward becoming more application-specific

The old approach to paper barrier design often sought one coating with as many functions as possible.

Water.

Oil.

Grease.

Oxygen.

Heat seal.

Scuff resistance.

That can simplify the commercial product.

But multifunctionality may require more chemistry or a more complex polymer system.

PPWR and EPR could encourage another design philosophy:

apply only the function the product actually needs.

A fresh-produce punnet may not require the same barrier as a hot-food tray.

A dry-food carton may not require a strong water barrier.

Reducing unnecessary functionality can potentially lower:

coat weight,

cost,

drying energy,

and recycling burden.

A precision application system becomes useful because it allows coating quantity to be engineered rather than simply flooded onto the substrate.

Coating placement could eventually matter as much as total coat weight

There is another interesting possibility.

Not every area of a package necessarily needs identical protection.

A tray base may experience most liquid contact.

A flange may need heat sealing.

The exterior may need little barrier at all.

Non-contact digital-like coating systems potentially make selective application easier than conventional full-surface lamination.

That could create a path toward functional zoning.

Put grease resistance where grease occurs.

Put seal chemistry where sealing occurs.

Avoid material where it adds no function.

The current Sun Chemical announcement does not provide detailed commercial examples of zoned coating, so this should be treated as a future process opportunity rather than an existing claim.

But the underlying machinery architecture makes that direction interesting.

Material reduction will have to be balanced against defect risk

There is also a lower limit.

Coating less material is useful only while barrier reliability remains high.

Push coat weight too low and defects can increase.

Pinholes.

Thin spots.

Incomplete coverage.

Poor seal strength.

Then food leaks or shelf life declines.

This is another sustainability trade-off.

Reducing 1 gram of coating is not beneficial if it causes an entire food package and its contents to be discarded.

The correct target is therefore not:

minimum coating.

It is:

minimum coating that reliably delivers the required function.

That is a much more engineering-focused objective.

The partnership shows how the paper-versus-plastic debate is maturing

For years, packaging sustainability discussions often sounded binary.

Paper good.

Plastic bad.

Or the opposite:

plastic efficient.

Paper heavy.

Real packaging engineering has always been more complicated.

The Sun Chemical–Archipelago collaboration reflects that maturity.

The industry is no longer only asking:

Can paper replace this plastic package?

It is asking:

What barrier does the product need?

How little coating can provide it?

Can the coating run at industrial speed?

Does it survive filling and distribution?

Does it seal?

Can the fibres be recovered?

What is the reject rate?

What PPWR grade could the final pack achieve?

And what does the complete system cost?

Those are the questions that determine whether a substitution actually scales.

The real competition will be between complete packaging systems

That is why it may be misleading to compare:

paper

versus

plastic.

A brand does not buy “paper.”

It buys a finished packaging system.

Likewise, it does not buy “coating.”

It buys:

product protection,

machine performance,

shelf life,

graphics,

compliance,

and end-of-life performance.

The winning structure may be a thin mono-material plastic pack in one application.

A coated paper tray in another.

A moulded-fibre container in another.

PPWR increasingly forces each architecture to justify its own material complexity.

That should favor systems that achieve more function with fewer incompatible materials.

The first approved coating is only the start of the useful evidence

BARV656 gives Sun Chemical and Archipelago a commercial starting point.

Sun Chemical already has experience using the chemistry in moisture-resistant paper produce packaging.

Powerdrop brings a way to apply functional coatings to complex 3D fibre geometries with low reported overspray and precise deposition.

Together, the technologies form a credible development platform.

But packaging buyers should still ask for application-specific evidence.

The most valuable next data would be:

coat weight,

WVTR,

OTR where relevant,

grease resistance,

heat-seal window,

machine throughput,

reject rate,

Cepi/4evergreen test results,

fibre yield,

screening rejects,

and performance after actual food-contact use.

Those numbers will determine whether “under 5%” becomes a technical advantage rather than merely a marketing number.

Paper packaging’s next breakthrough may be measured in fractions of a gram

The paper packaging industry has already solved the easy substitutions.

Simple trays.

Dry products.

Low-barrier applications.

The harder growth opportunities involve products that historically depended on plastics for functional performance.

To reach them, fibre packaging needs chemistry.

But every added gram of chemistry creates another question for recyclability.

That creates a new engineering frontier:

maximum function from minimum coating.

The Sun Chemical–Archipelago partnership is interesting because it attacks both sides of that equation.

Sun Chemical controls the barrier chemistry.

Archipelago controls how precisely that chemistry reaches the package.

If the combination can deliver reliable protection with substantially less non-fibre material, the value could extend beyond one coating or one moulded tray.

It could provide a model for how paper packaging competes in the PPWR era.

Not by pretending cellulose can perform every function on its own.

And not by rebuilding paper into a plastic-heavy composite.

But by adding only the functionality the fibre actually needs—and proving that the fibre can still come back afterwards.

That may be the real benchmark for the next generation of paper packaging:

not whether it contains a barrier, but whether the barrier disappears from the recycling equation without disappearing during use.

Last Updated on 17/09/2026 by Jota Machinery