A laminated packaging film bonds two or more films into a single web — one continuous roll of material — so each layer does a job the others cannot. Al-Qadisiyah Pack laminates seven structures on a solventless line, 40 to 150 microns: PET/PE, PET/Al/PE, PE/PE, BOPP/PE, BOPP/BOPP, BOPP/PET/PE and BOPP/MTZ.
The names read outside in, layer by layer. PET is polyester, BOPP is biaxially oriented polypropylene, Al is aluminium foil, MTZ is a metallised film, which the trade calls met film, and PE is polyethylene. *Rollstock* means film supplied on a roll to feed a filling line rather than as finished bags, and a *ply* is one of the films in the stack.
Most buyers arrive at this list from the wrong end, asking what a supplier can make before working out what the pack has to keep out. This guide goes the other way: start from the product, find the column that decides it, and stop there.
Laminate or co-extrusion: two different answers to "more layers"
Our guide to mono, 3-layer and 5-layer PE film covers co-extrusion, where melt streams meet at the die and the film leaves it already built in layers. Lamination bonds already-made films together with an adhesive, on a separate line, at a higher cost.
Here is why you would pay it. Polyethylene on its own, at any layer count, is a moisture barrier and not an oxygen barrier. A co-extruded oxygen barrier is possible — EVOH between tie layers is the usual route, and it is what a 5-layer barrier film is normally doing. Aluminium foil, metallised film and polyester cannot be co-extruded with PE at all, and those are the three that carry the barrier in the structures we run.
So the real question is whether your requirement is mechanical or a barrier requirement. Strength, stiffness, seal integrity and puncture resistance are answered by layer count in co-extruded film. Oxygen, light and aroma are answered by putting a different material in the stack, which means a laminate.
How we laminate and print
We run a solventless SUPERCOMB line. Solvent-based lamination carries its adhesive in a solvent that then has to be driven off, and residual solvent in a food pack is a taint and contamination risk that has to be managed and tested for. A solventless adhesive has no carrier to leave behind. It also cures faster and removes the solvent-recovery burden, but food safety is the argument that belongs on your specification.
Ask any laminator, ourselves included, which process they run, and ask for the certification scope in writing — "certified" alone does not say which lines and which products are covered. Ours are on our certifications page.
Printing on laminated rollstock is flexographic, up to 8 colours per side. We run rotogravure too, on work where colour consistency across a long run justifies engraved cylinders, but flexo is the process behind our laminates.
Start from what spoils your product
What spoils your product first: oxygen, light, moisture, or loss of aroma? The column you cannot compromise on is the one that picks your laminated packaging film. Everything above it is money.
| What you are packing | The column that decides it | Where that points |
|---|---|---|
| Rice, pulses and pasta on an automatic line | Moisture and mechanical toughness | BOPP/PE, or co-extruded film with no laminate at all |
| Tissues and dry goods with no sensitivity | Nothing decisive — cost is the deciding factor | BOPP/PE |
| Chilled products needing print registration | Moisture, heat resistance, dimensional stability | PET/PE |
| Snacks, crisps and anything fatty | Light first, then oxygen | BOPP/MTZ |
| Coffee, spices, powdered milk | Oxygen and light together, long shelf life | PET/Al/PE |
| Heavy packs on hard-running lines | Seal strength and mechanical toughness | BOPP/PET/PE |
| Liners inside drums and bulk bags | Load and puncture, not barrier | PE or PE/PE |
Treat it as a starting point. Required shelf life, line speed and sealing temperature can all move you a row either way, and that is the conversation to have before anyone quotes.
Worth noting where it points *away* from a laminate: our own cheese packaging is a food-grade PE shrink film at 40–70µ, not a laminate at all, because the requirement there is fit and seal.
The seven laminated packaging film structures, rated
| Structure | Oxygen | Light | Moisture | Aroma |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PE/PE | None | None | Moderate | None |
| BOPP/PE | Low | None | Moderate | Low |
| BOPP/BOPP | Low | None | Moderate | Low |
| PET/PE | Low–moderate | None | Moderate | Moderate |
| BOPP/PET/PE | Low–moderate | None | Moderate | Moderate |
| BOPP/MTZ | High | Near-total | High | High |
| PET/Al/PE | Near-total | Total | Near-total | Near-total |
One scale across all four columns: None, Low, Low–moderate, Moderate, High, Near-total, Total. Ratings assume a typical 80µ total at 23°C, and barrier follows the thickness of the barrier ply, so read this alongside the micron section below — the structure name alone does not fix the number.
The Aroma column rates loss by permeation. Flavour is also lost by sorption into the seal ply, which is roughly constant across all seven and is why no flexible pack is truly aroma-tight; that is a property of the seal layer rather than of the structure above it.
Three things in the barrier table are worth pulling out.
Clear means no light barrier. Every structure here except the metallised and foil ones passes light, and light is what turns fats rancid, fades pigments and destroys vitamins. If your product fades or goes off on a shelf, you are paying for a property that is working against it.
No laminated packaging film in the Low bands is an oxygen barrier. PET is roughly ten times less oxygen-permeable than BOPP, which is why PET/PE and BOPP/PET/PE carry their own band. Ten times a poor barrier is still a poor barrier. Foil is three orders of magnitude beyond both. If you have a genuine oxygen requirement, the answer is metallised film or foil, and the structures in between will not get you there however much you spend on them.
Grease is deliberately absent. Every structure here presents polyethylene or a sealable polypropylene to the product, so contact resistance to fats and oils is the same across all seven; that is the seal ply's job. Moisture behaves similarly for the first five rows — at equal total micron the bulk polyolefin dominates the stack, and polyethylene and oriented polypropylene are close enough on moisture that moving from PE/PE to BOPP/PE buys you very little. Metallising is the first real moisture gain on the list, and foil is the last.
What each structure is for, and what it costs
| Structure | What it is for | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| PE/PE | Bulk, strength and buried print protected between the plies, for liners and heavy rollstock | No oxygen, light or aroma barrier at all |
| BOPP/PE | A stiff, glossy, printable pack sealed by PE, for dry goods and snacks | Oxygen-sensitive contents stay exposed |
| BOPP/BOPP | Fast lines needing stiffness and clarity on both faces | Needs a sealable OPP inner (oriented polypropylene, the same family as BOPP) and a narrower sealing window than a PE seal layer gives |
| PET/PE | Stiffness, heat tolerance and the dimensional stability that holds print registration | More cost than BOPP/PE for very little oxygen gain |
| BOPP/PET/PE | Heavier packs needing stiffness, toughness and a PE seal together | Three plies and two lamination passes, the most expensive structure before foil |
| BOPP/MTZ | A near-total light barrier and a real oxygen improvement, far below foil's cost | Opaque; the metal layer flex-cracks with repeated creasing; seals on the unmetallised face, so the same narrow window as BOPP/BOPP; can cost you metal-detector sensitivity |
| PET/Al/PE | The longest shelf life available in a flexible pack | Opaque; not microwaveable; needs X-ray rather than conventional metal detection; highest cost |
PE/PE belongs on a laminate list despite adding no barrier at all. It builds thickness and strength beyond one extrusion pass and buries reverse-printed artwork between the plies where nothing abrades it. For liners and heavy rollstock that is the entire specification.
BOPP/PE is the workhorse of printed flexible packaging. Oriented polypropylene is stiff, glossy, prints well and holds moisture out; PE seals it. Most dry, non-oxygen-sensitive products belong here, and specifying past it usually buys a column the product does not need.
BOPP/BOPP swaps the PE seal layer for a second oriented film, giving stiffness and clarity on both faces at the cost of a narrower sealing window. The inner has to be a sealable OPP grade, and it will not forgive a filling line that runs hot.
PET/PE brings polyester in for stiffness, heat resistance and dimensional stability. That last one is the underrated part: polyester does not move under the press, so fine detail and tight colour registration hold. Its oxygen contribution is real but small, and buying PET/PE *for* oxygen is a common and expensive mistake.
BOPP/PET/PE stacks oriented polypropylene, polyester and a PE seal. Three plies and two lamination passes make it the most expensive structure before foil, so check a two-ply will not do first.
BOPP/MTZ is where metallising earns its keep: vapour-deposited aluminium, a few tens of nanometres thick, gives a near-total light barrier and a large oxygen improvement at a fraction of foil's cost. Two things to settle when you specify it. The metallised ply's own substrate matters — metallised polyester and metallised polypropylene are an order of magnitude apart on oxygen — so ask which one you are being quoted. And the metallised face must run inward to be protected, which makes your sealing surface the unmetallised side, with the same narrow window BOPP/BOPP has.
PET/Al/PE is the best barrier available in a flexible pack, and it is often bought for the wrong reason. The structure reads plainly: polyester carries print and abrasion resistance, aluminium carries the barrier, PE carries the seal.
Foil is not literally absolute. Converting foil runs 6–9µm, and at that gauge it always carries some pinholes and picks up more through creasing and gusseting, so a finished foil laminate is outstanding rather than perfect. Aroma is a similar story — permeation through the foil is negligible, but flavour can still be scalped into the PE seal layer.
What foil costs beyond money: the pack is opaque, so your product is never seen; it cannot be microwaved; and it defeats conventional balanced-coil metal detection, so an in-line check means X-ray inspection or a ferrous-in-foil detector. None of that rules foil out. They are all solved problems, but each one needs settling at the specification stage.
Liners: load and puncture come first
A liner sits inside another container. Nobody sees it, it carries no shelf artwork, and the outer container handles light. It has to hold a heavy load, resist puncture and seal reliably, which usually means PE, mono or co-extruded, or a PE/PE laminate when the load demands it.
An FIBC is a flexible intermediate bulk container, the bulk bag that typically carries between half a tonne and two tonnes. We run FIBC and drum liners in PE and multi-layer at 30 · 50 · 80 · 100 · 120 · 150 · 180 · 200µ, heat sealable and printable up to 8 colours.
One exception is worth knowing. A hygroscopic powder, or an oxygen-sensitive one, inside a drum needs the barrier at the liner, because the drum is not providing it. That is the case where a liner specification jumps to a metallised or foil structure, and what is inside decides it, whatever the format.
The micron ladder for laminated packaging film
| Micron rungs we laminate | Structures | Printing |
|---|---|---|
| 40 · 50 · 60 · 70 · 80 · 90 · 100 · 110 · 120 · 130 · 140 · 150µ | All seven | Flexo, up to 8 colours per side |
Total thickness is the sum of the plies, which is where specifications go wrong. The same 100µ can be built as a thick PE seal under a thin polyester or the other way round, and those two run differently on a filling line while reading identically on a purchase order. They also differ in barrier, which is set by how thick the barrier ply is whatever the total says.
So when you specify a laminated packaging film, give the structure and the total micron together, and say which ply seals. Thicknesses between the rungs are available on request, but ask rather than assume: a rung the line is not already set up for means a special run, and it gets priced as one.
What we will ask before quoting
A structure and a micron are the start of a specification. For a laminate specifically, we will also need:
- Which ply seals, and what it seals against. Your filling line's speed and sealing temperature decide this, and it is the question that most often changes a structure.
- Whether the pack goes through metal detection, X-ray, or a microwave. Say so early. Foil needs X-ray or a ferrous-in-foil detector, metallised film may cost detector sensitivity, and both are far cheaper to plan for than to discover.
- Food contact and declaration requirements, which the adhesive and the seal ply have to satisfy, not just the outer film.
- Required shelf life, which is what validates the structure choice and occasionally overturns it.
The rest is the same information any film order needs: format, roll width and core size, artwork and colour count, annual volume. The supplier qualification guide covers what those do to a price.
About Al-Qadisiyah Pack
We have produced polyethylene film since 1998 from our factory in 6th of October City, Giza. Alongside co-extrusion we laminate seven structures on a solventless line, print rotogravure and flexographic up to 8 colours per side on 6- and 8-colour machines, and run slitting and a stretch line.
We hold BRCGS for packaging materials, FSSC 22000 version 6, the Global Recycled Standard, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and Halal certification, each covering named products and lines. Our films reach food and beverage producers including Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and we export to Libya and Saudi Arabia with expansion into the United Kingdom underway.
Every product we make is listed with its specifications on our page as a flexible packaging manufacturer in Egypt, including laminated rollstock film.
Factory visits are welcome. To discuss a specification or request a quotation: +20 111 900 4902 or info@al-qadisiyahpack.com. We are at Polaris Park, North Extension, Part 22, Street D, Turkish Zone, 6th of October City, Giza — full details on our contact page.
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