Label adhesive solves hot-fill problem

Prepared Foods, July, 1992

Labeling hot-filled plastic juice bottles can be tricky. When Ocean Spray experienced problems such labeling problems, it switched to a National Starch and Chemical hot-melt that proved more effective than a number of adhesives the company had tried in a month-long test.

The new label adhesive, with its fast tack, gave the labels good bottle pick-up and worked out well. Yet some customers noted poor label appearance and label failure on some of their PET bottles during extremely hot and humid weather.

Ocean Spray solved this after conferring with its label supplier, which determined that the problem was due to the stress of the expansion and contraction of the bottle with changing temperatures and to prolonged exposure of the labeled containers to high temperatures.

The company then tried Kan-Tak 34-4976 hot-melt. It subjected the adhesive to some accelerated laboratory tests and then tested it on a full-day production run.

"We found this hot-melt to have superior adhesion and heat-stress resistance for the warm pack-off conditions," says Steve Kozeniewski, production supervisor for Ocean Spray. "It worked out so well on the troublesome PET bottle and plastic label combination we were using that we have been using it since."

Ocean Spray uses a plastic film layered label that many adhesives cannot chemically bond to. However, the Kan-Tak hot-melt is readily accepted by the label and holds it tenaciously to the bottle, the supplier says.

Kozeniewski praises National Starch's quality products and its customer service. "A |plastic bottle action team' formed by our corporate people has recommended that National's Kan-Tak 34-4976 hot-melt be used for the labeling operation in our plants nationwide," he says.