Consumer demands can vary widely from one country to another, making it critical for multi-national converters to support their customers’ growth by delivering  innovative packaging solutions from partners that understand this challenge as much as they do. For 18 years, this premise has been the foundation of the relationship between Presto Products Company (fresh-lock.com) and Mondi (mondigroup.com), a leading international packaging and paper group that operates in 31 countries. Collaborations include the  expansion of Mondi’s FlexZiBox portfolio in Europe with a flat-bottom, reclosable bag featuring a Slide-Rite® slider to enhance consumer convenience and expert, efficient technical support to help Mondi’s customers in North America speed product to market and gain a competitive edge.

Presto offers reclosable solutions for flexible packaging. Its Slide-Rite® closure – the market leader for reclosable sliders – can be used in applications throughout the food, beverage, pet products and household goods industries, and equipped with the company’s patented tamper evident, self-cleaning and high-retention technologies. Presto also offers press-to-close zipper solutions under its Fresh-Lock® family of closures that that can be used in applications across a range of food, beverage and pet food sectors – and with the added capabilities provided by the company’s patented audible/tactile, easy-seal and double-zip solutions.

The relationship began when Mondi was exploring reclosable pouch options to penetrate the North American market. The company – then known as Nordenia USA – enlisted Pactiv’s zipper group, which was acquired by Presto in 2010, to provide PTC technology for easy, convenient resealability. Prior to that acquisition, the two companies were also working together in Europe, with Pactiv providing Slide-Rite® sliders for larger sized bags beginning in 2000. Four years later, Nordenia looked to Pactiv to equip an extension of its FlexZiBox flat-bottom bag portfolio with Slide-Rite® sliders. Today, Presto services Mondi on both sides of the Atlantic with high-quality resealable innovation, including its Fresh-Lock® line of PTC zippers and, with growing frequency, its sliders.

For Mondi in North America, Presto’s fast, flexible customer support has been a significant asset in enabling the converter to rapidly respond to customer requests, whether to accommodate short production timelines or technical assistance.

“We recently completed a multi-year project where Presto provided invaluable insight and assistance from inception to commercialization,” says Mark Gum, Technical Support and New Product Development, Mondi Jackson Consumer Goods Packaging. “Presto’s immersion in the entire process and its ability to respond quickly to our customer needs helps us bring our ideas for packaging innovation to life – and speed their time to market.”

Presto continues to support Mondi’s expansion of its FlexZiBox portfolio of flat-bottom bags in Europe. The version featuring the Slide-Rite® closure delivers greater convenience and the assurance of a secure seal. The brightly colored, customized Slide-Rite® closure is easy to push from one side of the bag to the other for opening as well as resealing. An interior white tamper-evident membrane, designed to enhance product safety is then opened so contents can be easily emptied, leaving minimal mess. In addition to convenience, the flexible, flat-bottom bags provide stability on the shelf and when stored in the home and offer extra branding real estate for boosting the visual appeal of a variety of applications including food, pet food, lawn and garden products and household cleaners.

“The addition of the Slide-Rite® closure further enhances the shelf presentation of the flat-bottom bag and offers the convenience and reliability consumers expect from packaging while keeping product freshness and safety intact,” says Alfons Kruse, plant manager at Mondi Steinfeld. “The project is a powerful example of the innovative solutions that we’ve been able to bring to market with Presto’s innovation, expertise and technical support.”