What TOPPAN Showcased at interpack 2026
Sustainable Flexible Packaging: What TOPPAN Showcased at interpack 2026 and Why It Matters
The flexible packaging industry is entering a period in which sustainability can no longer be treated as a separate design objective.
Packaging still has to protect products. It still has to seal reliably. It still has to survive manufacturing, filling, transportation, handling and storage. It may need to protect against oxygen, moisture, light and aroma loss. It may need to tolerate hot filling, freezing, pasteurisation or high-temperature retort processing. And increasingly, it also needs to fit into packaging systems designed around recyclability, circularity and changing regulatory requirements.
That combination of requirements is changing how flexible packaging is engineered.
At interpack 2026 in Düsseldorf, TOPPAN presented a particularly clear example of this transition. The TOPPAN Group exhibited together with TOPPAN Packaging Czech s.r.o. (TCZ), Toppan Speciality Films Private Limited (TSF) and Italian BOPP specialist Irplast S.p.A., bringing together barrier-film technology, base-film manufacturing and specialist sustainable film development within one broader packaging platform.
The significance goes beyond one trade show.
The technologies presented illustrate a broader question facing converters, brand owners and packaging development teams across Europe and worldwide:
How can flexible packaging become easier to recycle without sacrificing the performance that made flexible packaging valuable in the first place?
The answer is unlikely to come from one material, one coating or one sustainability claim. It requires a more integrated approach to material selection, barrier engineering, sealing, processing and supply.
That is where the combined capabilities of TOPPAN, TCZ, TSF and Irplast become particularly relevant.
Why Sustainable Flexible Packaging Is Becoming an Engineering Challenge
For decades, one of the strengths of flexible packaging has been the ability to combine different materials to create very specific functionality.
A packaging structure might use one material for stiffness, another for heat resistance, another for oxygen barrier, another for moisture resistance and another for sealing. The resulting laminate could provide excellent product protection using relatively little packaging material.
The difficulty appears at end of life.
When substantially different polymer families, aluminium foil, coatings, adhesives and other components are permanently combined, the resulting structure may be more difficult to process within established recycling streams.
The industry is therefore moving toward packaging structures designed around compatible material families, particularly polyethylene- and polypropylene-based concepts.
This is the logic behind mono-material flexible packaging.
“Mono-material” does not necessarily mean that every microscopic component of a package is identical. In practical packaging development, it generally describes structures designed predominantly around one polymer family so that the package is more compatible with an appropriate recycling stream.
The challenge is preserving functionality.
Replacing a conventional PET/PE, PET/Al/PE or other multi-material laminate with a recyclable-oriented structure is not simply a question of swapping one film for another. The new package may have to reproduce barrier performance, puncture resistance, stiffness, optical properties, seal strength, hot tack, printing performance and processing behaviour.
For retort packaging, the difficulty rises again because the complete package must survive severe heat and pressure while maintaining hermetic integrity and product protection.
This is why sustainable flexible packaging increasingly needs to be treated as materials engineering rather than material elimination.
TOPPAN at interpack 2026: Bringing Several Film Capabilities Together
Interpack 2026 took place at Messe Düsseldorf from May 7 to May 13, 2026, with the TOPPAN Group exhibiting in Hall 10, booth D44. TOPPAN participated alongside TCZ, TSF and Irplast, with the official presentation focusing heavily on technologies combining high-barrier performance with mono-material packaging concepts.
Each company contributes a different part of that capability.
TOPPAN brings decades of packaging and barrier-development expertise, including its GL BARRIER transparent barrier-film technology.
TOPPAN Packaging Czech provides a European manufacturing base for barrier films near Most in the Czech Republic, strengthening local supply capability for customers in Europe. TOPPAN identifies TCZ specifically as its European barrier-film production site.
Toppan Speciality Films brings large-scale film manufacturing capabilities and specialist polypropylene and polyethylene film development.
Irplast adds European BOPP manufacturing, simultaneous biaxial orientation expertise, specialist labels and tapes, and films incorporating renewable or circular feedstock concepts. TOPPAN acquired an 80% stake in Irplast through TSF in 2025, strengthening the group's high-performance BOPP capabilities.
Together, these capabilities allow packaging development to move beyond the traditional relationship between a barrier-film supplier and a separate base-film supplier.
Instead, barrier technology, substrate development and mono-material structure design can increasingly be considered as parts of the same packaging problem.
GL BARRIER and the Evolution of High-Barrier Mono-Material Packaging
One of the central technologies presented by TOPPAN at interpack 2026 was GL BARRIER.
GL BARRIER is TOPPAN's family of transparent high-barrier films developed to protect packaged products from oxygen and moisture while maintaining transparency. TOPPAN describes the technology as combining vapor deposition and coating technologies to create high-performance barrier substrates used across food, healthcare, pharmaceutical and industrial applications.
Barrier performance matters because oxygen and moisture can dramatically influence product stability.
Oxygen exposure may contribute to oxidation, rancidity, colour changes, aroma deterioration and degradation of certain nutrients. Water vapour movement may cause products to become dry, soft, stale or otherwise unstable depending on the characteristics of the food.
For many products, therefore, eliminating a high-performance barrier simply to simplify a packaging structure would be counterproductive.
The more useful objective is to achieve required barrier protection while designing the overall package around materials that are more compatible with recycling systems.
This was one of the important themes of TOPPAN's interpack presentation.
TOPPAN demonstrated mono-material versions of GL BARRIER packaging designed to achieve high barrier performance comparable with conventional multi-material structures while using compositions intended to improve recyclability. The company also highlighted versions capable of tolerating high-temperature retort sterilisation.
That last point is particularly significant.
Why Retortable Mono-Material Packaging Is Difficult
Retort packaging is one of the more demanding applications in flexible packaging.
The package must tolerate elevated temperatures and pressure during sterilisation while preserving seal integrity and maintaining adequate barrier performance after processing.
It is not enough for the unprocessed film to demonstrate excellent laboratory oxygen-transmission values.
The barrier must survive the actual process.
Seals must remain reliable.
The package cannot delaminate or distort beyond acceptable limits.
Mechanical properties must remain suitable.
Food-contact compliance and process validation must also be established for the intended application.
Historically, these performance requirements have frequently been addressed using complex multi-material laminates, including structures containing PET, nylon or aluminium.
Moving toward polypropylene-dominant retort structures therefore represents much more than changing the recycling claim printed on a package.
It requires rebuilding multiple functions within a more compatible material family.
At interpack 2026, TOPPAN presented GL BARRIER solutions developed specifically around this challenge.
And importantly, the concept has now moved beyond trade-show presentation.
Following interpack 2026, TOPPAN announced that a recyclable retort-compatible mono-material pouch combining technologies from Irplast and TOPPAN Packaging Czech received a Silver Sustainability Design Award at interpack. TOPPAN stated that the PP mono-material pouch was designed to provide barrier performance comparable with conventional multi-material packaging while withstanding the temperature and pressure required by retort sterilisation.
For packaging teams evaluating recyclable retort structures, that is an important real-world development because it demonstrates how collaboration between substrate manufacturing and barrier-film development is translating into complete packaging concepts.
The Role of TOPPAN Packaging Czech in European Flexible Packaging
The location of manufacturing is another part of the story.
TOPPAN Packaging Czech operates as TOPPAN's European barrier-film production site in the Czech Republic.
That matters because the move toward sustainable flexible packaging is not only a materials challenge. It is also a supply-chain challenge.
European converters and multinational brand owners increasingly need packaging materials that can be developed, qualified and supplied consistently across markets.
A strong European manufacturing base can potentially support shorter and more resilient supply routes, closer technical collaboration and more responsive product development.
It also places barrier-film capability closer to a market experiencing significant packaging-policy change.
The EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, or PPWR, is increasing attention on packaging minimisation, recyclability, recycling systems and circularity. That does not mean one particular film automatically guarantees compliance. Packaging has to be assessed as a finished system in its intended market.
Nevertheless, regulations such as PPWR are accelerating the commercial importance of packaging designs that maintain functionality while becoming more compatible with future circular-economy requirements.
TCZ therefore provides TOPPAN not only with manufacturing capacity, but also with a strategic European platform for working with converters and brand owners navigating that transition.
TSF: Building the Base Films Required for the Next Generation of Packaging
Barrier technology cannot work in isolation.
High-performance flexible packaging begins with substrates capable of providing the mechanical, thermal, optical and processing characteristics required by the application.
This is where Toppan Speciality Films plays an important role.
TSF became part of the TOPPAN Group in 2022 and manufactures polypropylene films used across flexible packaging, processed foods, confectionery, labels, non-food FMCG applications and industrial markets.
At interpack 2026, TSF highlighted a range of film technologies intended to support the movement toward more recyclable mono-material packaging.
These included retortable CPP, BOPE, ultra-high-barrier films and high-seal-strength solutions.
Each addresses a different packaging requirement.
Retortable CPP and Heat-Resistant Packaging
Cast polypropylene, or CPP, is widely used as a sealant or functional film in flexible packaging.
For demanding applications such as retort, the film needs to maintain dimensional, mechanical and sealing performance under severe thermal conditions.
Retort-compatible CPP can therefore become an important component in PP-dominant pouch structures designed to replace more complex conventional laminates.
When combined with suitable oriented polypropylene and barrier substrates, it becomes possible to engineer structures in which much of the functional performance remains within the polypropylene family.
This is the central principle behind many current mono-PP packaging developments.
BOPE and the Development of Mono-PE Flexible Packaging
BOPE stands for biaxially oriented polyethylene.
Orientation modifies the physical properties of the film and can improve characteristics such as stiffness, optical properties and mechanical performance compared with conventional non-oriented polyethylene films.
This can make BOPE valuable when creating PE-based structures intended to replace laminates that traditionally depended on PET or BOPP for stiffness and printability.
Again, the objective is not to use PE because PE is automatically “sustainable.”
The objective is to create a functional packaging structure concentrated within a compatible polymer family where appropriate recycling infrastructure exists.
That distinction is important.
Sustainable packaging should be evaluated on evidence and systems, not on slogans.
Why Seal Strength Matters as Much as Recyclability
One element of sustainable packaging that receives less public attention is seal performance.
A package may have an excellent recyclability profile on paper, but if it cannot seal consistently at commercial production speeds, it has failed as a packaging solution.
Weak seals can cause leaks.
Seal contamination can interfere with package integrity.
Insufficient hot tack may cause seals to open while still warm.
A very narrow sealing window can make packaging more difficult to run consistently across high-speed equipment.
These failures can lead directly to product loss, downtime, rejected packages and food waste.
That is why TSF's emphasis on high-seal-strength technology is relevant to sustainability as well as production efficiency.
The best recyclable flexible packaging is not simply the package with the fewest material types.
It is the package that can be manufactured efficiently, protect the product throughout its intended life and enter an appropriate recycling pathway afterwards.
If a material change increases product failures or food waste, the sustainability calculation becomes more complicated.
Ultra-High-Barrier Films: Using Protection Where Protection Is Needed
The same principle applies to barrier performance.
A tendency in sustainable packaging discussions is to assume that less barrier is automatically better because barrier technologies can add complexity.
That approach ignores why barrier packaging exists.
For oxygen- or moisture-sensitive products, barrier performance can be central to shelf life.
If insufficient protection leads to oxidation, aroma loss, moisture damage or reduced usable life, the environmental burden associated with the discarded product may outweigh the incremental impact of the packaging designed to protect it.
Therefore, high-barrier packaging should not automatically be viewed as the opposite of sustainable packaging.
The relevant question is whether the package provides the level of barrier genuinely required by the product using an efficient structure that is compatible with broader circularity objectives.
This is precisely why developments that combine high barrier and mono-material design are strategically important.
They attempt to eliminate the historical trade-off between high product protection and improved recyclability.
Irplast: BOPP Expertise Meets Circular and Bio-Circular Feedstocks
Irplast adds another dimension to TOPPAN's packaging portfolio.
The Italian company specialises in biaxially oriented polypropylene, commonly known as BOPP, along with labels, printed adhesive tapes and specialty film solutions.
Irplast was also the first company in Europe to implement a Brückner LISIM simultaneous stretching line for BOPP production, according to both Irplast and TOPPAN.
In 2025, TSF agreed to acquire 80% of Irplast, bringing the Italian manufacturer into the TOPPAN Group and expanding the group's European BOPP capabilities.
At interpack, particular attention was placed on Irplast's LOOPP and NOPP concepts.
These products illustrate another pathway toward reducing dependence on conventional fossil feedstocks.
What Is Irplast LOOPP?
LOOPP is based on polypropylene associated with feedstock derived from the chemical recycling of post-consumer plastic waste.
Irplast explains that its approach uses a mass-balance system, with chemically recycled feedstock replacing a corresponding quantity of fossil feedstock within an ISCC PLUS-certified supply chain.
Mass balance requires some explanation because it is frequently misunderstood.
It does not necessarily mean that a specific individual roll of film can be physically identified molecule by molecule as containing the exact percentage of recycled polymer stated through conventional segregation.
Instead, certified circular feedstock enters an integrated production system and is allocated to products through controlled chain-of-custody accounting.
This approach is used in industries where completely segregating renewable or circular feedstocks from conventional feedstock would be technically or economically impractical.
The benefit is that circular raw materials can be introduced into established polymer manufacturing systems while maintaining high material quality.
The accuracy of claims and the certification framework therefore become extremely important.
Irplast's LOOPP products are associated with ISCC PLUS-certified mass-balance supply chains, providing third-party chain-of-custody mechanisms for the attributed circular feedstock.
What Is Irplast NOPP?
NOPP takes a related but different approach.
Instead of feedstock derived from post-consumer plastic waste, NOPP uses renewable bio-circular feedstocks.
Irplast identifies sources including materials such as used cooking oil and tall oil, a co-product associated with the forestry and pulp industries. These feedstocks are designed to avoid direct competition with food crops.
Irplast reports that it began large-scale production of certified renewable-feedstock BOPP in Europe in 2020.
The purpose is to reduce reliance on virgin fossil feedstock without requiring packaging users to sacrifice the technical characteristics expected from conventional BOPP.
This is a critical principle.
For brand owners, sustainable packaging materials become significantly easier to adopt when they can be introduced without requiring complete redesign of filling equipment, printing systems or downstream packaging processes.
Why “Same Performance” Matters to Packaging Converters
One of the most important messages behind both LOOPP and NOPP is that a sustainable feedstock strategy should ideally not compromise manufacturing performance.
Converters invest heavily in printing presses, laminators, coaters, slitters, pouch-making equipment and quality-control systems.
Brand owners have filling lines designed around defined ranges of friction, stiffness, thickness, seal behaviour and dimensional stability.
A replacement film that requires major machine changes or reduces productivity can quickly lose commercial attractiveness.
This is why Irplast places emphasis on maintaining the mechanical, physical and optical behaviour expected from conventional BOPP while changing the feedstock pathway.
The broader lesson is important:
Sustainable flexible packaging is most scalable when sustainability is engineered into the material without asking the packaging line to stop behaving like a commercial packaging line.
From Multi-Material to Mono-Material: What Brand Owners Need to Consider
The transition toward recyclable flexible packaging can sometimes be communicated too simply.
A company may begin with a conventional laminate and ask its supplier to “make it mono-material.”
In practice, successful conversion usually requires much deeper evaluation.
The oxygen and moisture sensitivity of the product must be understood.
The expected shelf life and distribution conditions must be defined.
The package's thermal requirements must be known.
The filling speed and sealing conditions need to be evaluated.
Printability, stiffness and machinability cannot be ignored.
The impact of retort, hot fill or pasteurisation must be assessed where relevant.
Finished-package testing is then needed to confirm that the new structure actually performs under commercial conditions.
A successful transition therefore involves more than choosing a recyclable film.
It requires packaging development as a system.
This is where the combined capabilities represented at interpack become strategically useful.
TSF and Irplast can address high-performance base films.
TOPPAN contributes advanced barrier technologies.
TOPPAN Packaging Czech provides European barrier-film manufacturing and technical supply capability.
Together, the group can engage with a broader portion of the packaging structure rather than supplying one isolated component.
PPWR Is Increasing the Urgency for European Packaging Development
European packaging strategy is also being influenced by regulation.
The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, establishes requirements affecting packaging throughout its life cycle and is designed to move the European packaging market toward greater recyclability, waste prevention and circularity.
PPWR entered into force in February 2025 and generally became applicable from 12 August 2026, although many individual obligations and implementing measures follow their own timelines.
For packaging developers, that means recyclability can no longer be addressed only after a structure has been commercialised.
It increasingly needs to become a design input.
But PPWR does not remove the fundamental purpose of packaging.
Products still have to arrive safely and in acceptable condition.
Food packaging still needs to protect food.
Pharmaceutical packaging still needs to maintain required protection and safety.
Industrial packaging still needs to withstand its supply chain.
The real opportunity therefore lies in designing packaging that can satisfy product-protection requirements while becoming progressively better aligned with recycling infrastructure and circular-material strategies.
That is why high-barrier mono-material films, retort-compatible PP structures, BOPE, advanced BOPP and circular-feedstock solutions are receiving so much attention.
Sustainable Packaging Must Also Protect What Is Inside
There is another reason this balance matters: the environmental impact of the packaged product itself.
Packaging is highly visible, but the environmental resources embodied in food can include agricultural inputs, water, energy, refrigeration, processing, transportation and labour.
If inadequate packaging causes the product to spoil prematurely, those resources are lost along with the food.
This means packaging reduction should not be pursued independently of product protection.
A thinner structure may be beneficial if it performs reliably.
A mono-material structure may be beneficial if it maintains the required shelf life.
A lower-carbon feedstock may be beneficial if it performs efficiently on existing production lines.
But sustainability deteriorates rapidly if the redesign increases damage, leakage, spoilage or rejected production.
The best packaging strategy therefore seeks material efficiency and product efficiency simultaneously.
That is a more demanding objective, but it is also a more meaningful one.
The interpack 2026 Award Provides an Important Proof Point
One of the most interesting developments following interpack strengthens this argument.
Irplast received a Silver Sustainability Design Award for a recyclable retort-compatible mono-material pouch created by combining Irplast's technology with the barrier-film expertise of TOPPAN Packaging Czech.
More than 100 packaging solutions were entered in the interpack-linked sustainability competition, according to TOPPAN.
The pouch is particularly relevant because retort packaging represents one of the applications where simplifying material structures is difficult.
It has to combine high-temperature processing resistance, barrier protection, seal reliability and sufficient mechanical performance.
Producing that functionality in a PP mono-material-oriented structure demonstrates the kind of technical integration the industry will increasingly require.
The award does not mean that every retort package can immediately be converted to the same structure.
Individual products, processes and recycling systems still need to be assessed.
But it provides evidence that mono-material retort packaging has progressed from theoretical sustainability ambition toward practical commercial development.
What TOPPAN's Strategy Suggests About the Future of Flexible Packaging
The most important takeaway from TOPPAN's interpack 2026 presence may not be any individual film.
It is the direction of travel.
The flexible packaging industry is moving away from treating barrier film, base film, sustainability and recyclability as separate conversations.
They are becoming one conversation.
A future-ready film may need to provide strong mechanical performance while being compatible with a mono-material structure.
A barrier coating may need to deliver extremely low transmission without creating an obstacle to recyclability.
A sealant needs to perform at industrial line speeds while remaining within the chosen polymer family.
Circular or renewable feedstocks need traceable certification.
European manufacturing capability needs to support global packaging platforms.
And all of those elements still have to deliver a package that performs its primary function: protecting the product.
That is the real significance of bringing TOPPAN, TOPPAN Packaging Czech, Toppan Speciality Films and Irplast together.
The combined platform joins barrier science, polypropylene and polyethylene film manufacturing, European production, circular feedstock development and packaging application expertise.
For packaging buyers, this potentially creates a broader technical conversation.
Instead of asking simply, “Which film should we buy?” the more productive question becomes:
What packaging structure will deliver the required protection, processing performance and circularity profile for this particular application?
Sustainable Flexible Packaging Is Moving Beyond the Slogan
Packaging sustainability has accumulated a vocabulary of attractive words: recyclable, circular, mono-material, bio-based, recycled, renewable and lightweight.
Those terms have value, but only when they describe packaging that works.
A package that is nominally recyclable but fails on the filling line is not a successful solution.
A low-material package that allows food to spoil prematurely is not automatically environmentally preferable.
A high-barrier package that uses unnecessary complexity is also not necessarily optimal.
The next stage of flexible packaging development will therefore depend on precision.
Use the barrier the product needs.
Use material combinations that support viable recycling pathways.
Remove unnecessary complexity where possible.
Choose film structures that survive actual production and distribution.
Introduce circular or renewable feedstocks where they can be substantiated.
And validate the complete package rather than relying on one impressive material property.
That is a much more sophisticated definition of sustainable packaging.
It is also the direction demonstrated by the technologies TOPPAN brought together at interpack 2026.
From Packaging Ambition to Commercial Reality
The transition to sustainable flexible packaging will not happen through a single replacement film.
It will happen application by application.
A snack pouch will have different requirements from a retorted soup.
A dry powder may need very different moisture protection from a refrigerated food.
A pharmaceutical application may require different validation from confectionery.
A package designed for European recycling infrastructure may require different decisions from one sold in another market.
The right starting point is therefore not a predetermined material.
It is the application.
What must the package protect?
What barrier is required?
What temperature will it experience?
How long must the product remain stable?
What sealing conditions are used?
What line speeds are expected?
What recycling stream is being targeted?
What sustainability claims can be demonstrated and documented?
Once those questions are answered, film selection becomes significantly more meaningful.
That is where the expanding TOPPAN Group film platform can provide value.
Talk to TOPPAN About Your Next Flexible Packaging Structure
The future of flexible packaging will not be defined by choosing performance or sustainability.
The strongest solutions will increasingly have to deliver both.
TOPPAN's GL BARRIER technologies, TOPPAN Packaging Czech's European barrier-film manufacturing capability, TSF's high-performance CPP, BOPE and specialty films, and Irplast's advanced BOPP and circular-feedstock portfolio create a growing toolkit for companies developing the next generation of flexible packaging.
Whether the objective is to move from a multi-material laminate toward a mono-material packaging structure, develop a recyclable retort pouch, improve oxygen or moisture protection, explore BOPP or BOPE films, investigate renewable or circular feedstocks, or evaluate a high-barrier alternative to an existing structure, the correct solution begins with the requirements of the product and the packaging process.
Do not start by asking which sustainable film has the strongest claim. Start by asking what the complete package needs to achieve.
TOPPAN Packaging Czech can help packaging teams evaluate those requirements and explore suitable high-performance film technologies.
Discuss your packaging application with TOPPAN Packaging Czech s.r.o.
Request technical information, datasheets or film samples, or speak with the team about high-barrier and mono-material packaging development.
Email: toppancz@toppan.comLearn more: films.toppan.com
From high-barrier protection to recyclable-oriented mono-material structures, the goal is the same:
engineer packaging that protects the product, performs in the real world and is designed for the packaging systems of the future.