A consumer products customer recently asked Package Machinery to do some calculations on their wrapped package. It was a flow wrapped (fin seal wrap) tray and they wanted to know what the difference was to overwrap. We carefully took the film off their tray and rewrapped it overwrap style.  We then measured the difference between the two sheets of film. There was a 14% reduction in film use in the overwrapped tray vs, flow wrap. We then looked at the corrugated box that the trays had been shipped in and realized that they could shrink the dimension on the corrugate by one inch.

The savings was not simply in the film  but in the corrugate and then in the space and weight in shipping. Theses were small numbers on one box but, in volume, certainly added up.

Because we were curious, we tried the same thing with another customer’s tray. The second tray was much smaller than the first, but the film savings were basically the same: 13.5%.

The other factor we noticed was that the trays seemed more rigid with the overwrap. We realized that because the overwrap adhered closely to the tray, it added some structural integrity to an otherwise flimsy tray.

In all fairness to flow wrap, it is an airtight seal, which overwrap is not. But if saving film, structural integrity and corrugate are more important than completely airtight seal, overwrap will serve you better over the long run.