Shrink film thickness is decided by the load, not by preference. Light, smooth products and interleaving sheets run at 40–50 microns; heavier packs and sharp edges need 60 or 70. Shrink film in Egypt is sold for two completely different jobs, and most wrong orders start by confusing them.
That is the short answer. The longer one starts with a problem in the question itself.
Two different products share the word "shrink"
Ask ten buyers for shrink film in Egypt and you will get two unrelated requirements back.
Primary packaging is film that shrinks onto the product itself and seals around it — cheese wrapped tight to the block, with the film in direct food contact. What matters is fit, seal integrity, clarity and a food-contact declaration you can hand an auditor.
Collation packaging, also called bundling or secondary packaging, is film that shrinks around *several* products at once: a tray of bottled water, a bundle of cartons, a pallet load. Nothing touches food. What matters is load retention, puncture resistance and how the bundle survives a lorry.
Primary and collation shrink film are specified differently, certified differently and priced differently. Al-Qadisiyah Pack makes primary packaging film — food-contact shrink film — and not collation film. Our shrink film is a food-grade polyethylene film for cheese and dairy, 40 to 70 microns, in sheets, rolls and bags.
If you are bundling bottled water trays or collating cartons, that is a heavier polyethylene collation film or a polyolefin (POF) film, and we do not list either. Say so when you call and we will tell you plainly whether anything in our range covers it rather than selling you a gauge that will not hold your load. Knowing which of the two you are buying is worth more than any gauge table, because ordering the wrong one wastes a whole production run.
The rest of this guide is about primary, food-contact shrink film: how its thickness is chosen, what we run, and what to ask any supplier of shrink film in Egypt before you order.
How shrink film thickness is actually decided
Gauge — the trade's word for film thickness — is set by four properties of what you are wrapping, in roughly this order of importance.
Weight. The film has to hold the product without splitting at the seal once it cools and contracts. Mass is the first thing that pushes a specification up the ladder.
Edges and corners. A sharp corner concentrates every bit of shrink tension onto one point. A cheese block with square edges punctures film that would handle a heavier round product without complaint. This is the property most often missed on a purchase order.
How much handling it gets. Film that only has to survive a chiller is specified differently from film that gets stacked, picked, shipped and handled by a customer.
Your tunnel. Shrink film is a system with the heat tunnel, not a standalone material. Temperature and dwell time decide how much shrink force develops, and a gauge that runs beautifully on one line scorches or under-shrinks on another. This is why the same shrink film thickness gets opposite reviews from two factories.
One thing worth saying plainly: thicker is not better, it is just more expensive. Over-gauging is the most common and least visible waste in shrink packaging, because the pack looks fine and the overspend only appears in the film bill at the end of the quarter. Under-gauging announces itself immediately — burn-through, split seals, collapsed bundles — which is why buyers drift upward and stay there.
The four rungs we run
| Gauge | Where it generally sits | Available as |
|---|---|---|
| 40µ | Lightest work: interleaving sheets between slices and portions, where the film separates rather than carries | Sheets · Rolls · Bags |
| 50µ | The common specification for wrapped portions and retail cheese packs on a smooth, round or soft-edged product | Sheets · Rolls · Bags |
| 60µ | Heavier blocks, firmer cheeses, and anything with a defined edge or a longer handling chain | Sheets · Rolls · Bags |
| 70µ | The top of our range: the heaviest blocks, square-edged product, and packs that get handled repeatedly before they are opened | Sheets · Rolls · Bags |
The gauge table's second column describes how polyethylene shrink film behaves as it gets thicker — more mass to resist puncture, more shrink force, less drape over fine detail. It is a starting point for a conversation, not a tested specification for your product. Your own tunnel temperature, line speed and product geometry can move you a rung either way, and that is a conversation to have before anyone quotes.
All four gauges are food-grade polyethylene, printable flexographic up to 8 colours per side. Shrink film thickness outside 40–70µ is available on request — but ask rather than assume. A rung the line is not already set up for means a special run and gets priced as one.
Sheets, rolls or bags: the format decides as much as the gauge
We supply the same film in three formats, and buyers often discover too late that the format was the real decision.
Sheets are cut film, interleaved between portions or laid into a container. This is the format behind easy separation — one sheet lifts one portion without the stack fighting back. If your line is manual or semi-automatic, or you are portioning by hand, sheets usually win.
Rolls feed an automatic or semi-automatic wrapper. If you have a machine, you want rollstock — film supplied on a roll to feed the line rather than as finished bags — and you will need to give us the roll width and core size along with the gauge.
Bags are pre-made and sealed on three sides, so the product drops in and the open edge seals. Slower per unit than rollstock, but they need no forming step and no film-handling skill, which makes them the practical answer for lower volumes and mixed product sizes.
A gauge that is right in one format is not automatically right in another. A 40µ interleaving sheet and a 40µ bag are asked to do completely different jobs.
The gauge you can certify
For anything in direct food contact, there is a question that sits above the gauge table, and most pages selling shrink film in Egypt do not mention it at all: can the supplier put the food-contact scope in writing?
The gap is real. Film can be run on reclaimed resin with no food-contact declaration behind it, and it looks identical on arrival. It wraps, it shrinks, it seals, and it will pass every test you can run on the loading bay. What it will not pass is an audit.
So ask three things of any shrink film supplier, including us:
- Which certifications, and covering which products and lines. "Certified" on its own says nothing — a certificate has a scope, and the scope is the part that matters.
- The resin grade, and whether reclaim is used. For food contact this is not a cost question, it is a compliance one.
- Whether the declaration covers your application, including your intended contact time, temperature and fat content. Cheese is a fatty food, which is a harder case than a dry one.
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. Every certificate is published and downloadable on our certifications page — not described there, downloadable, so you can read the scope yourself before you call.
What sets the price, since we are not going to publish one
No film supplier in this market quotes a per-kilo rate on a web page, ourselves included, and the reason is not evasiveness: the same gauge in two different specifications is two different prices. What you can know in advance is which levers move it.
- Film family and resin grade. A food-grade virgin PE specification and a general-purpose one are not comparable products.
- Gauge. Film is sold by weight, so this is close to linear — which is exactly why over-gauging is expensive.
- Width and format. Sheets carry a cutting step. Rolls need a width and a core size. Bags are made, not just slit.
- Printing. Plain is cheapest. Up to 8 colours is available, and each colour is a cylinder or a plate.
- Volume and run length. A standard rung in a steady annual volume is the cheapest film we make. A one-off special gauge is the most expensive.
Anyone quoting a shrink film price before knowing those five variables — resin grade, gauge, width and format, printing, and volume — is guessing, and the number will move once they stop.
What we will ask before quoting
A gauge on its own is not a specification. For shrink film we will also need:
- What you are wrapping — the product, its weight, and whether it has square edges or soft ones.
- Pack or bundle size — single portions, retail packs, or something larger.
- Line speed, and whether the line is manual, semi-automatic or automatic.
- Tunnel temperature and dwell time, if you know them. If you do not, say which machine you run and we will work from that.
Plus the ordinary commercial details: format, roll width and core size, print and colour count, and annual volume. Our supplier qualification guide covers what each of those does to a price.
If your requirement turns out to be a barrier requirement rather than a shrink one — oxygen, light or aroma over a long shelf life — then shrink film is the wrong product and a laminate is the right one. Our guide to laminated packaging film structures covers that case, and our guide to mono, 3-layer and 5-layer PE film covers where layer count rather than thickness is the answer.
About Al-Qadisiyah Pack
We have produced polyethylene film since 1998 from our factory in 6th of October City, Giza. We co-extrude mono, 3-layer and 5-layer film, 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 our cheese shrink film and barrier sheets.
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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