Company Overview

The Autobar Group is a pan-European business that manufactures a large range of packaging products mainly for use in the food, drink, health and home and personal care sectors. The Group has three trading businesses: Veriplast International, Autobar Rigid Packaging and Autobar Flexible Packaging. Autobar utilises injection moulding, thermoforming, extrusion and lamination for processing polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene, PET and PLA biodegradable polymers.

Biodegradable Plastic Products

The Autobar Disposables Group is a pan-European manufacturer of disposable foodservice products trading under the name Veriplast International. Autobar began its experimentation with NatureWorks PLA in 1997 when it manufactured yoghurt containers for Danone, the major European dairy products producer, for trials in the German market. While the containers were found to be successful, the systems to segregate the compostable materials had not yet been developed at that time.

Autobar has worked with Italian supermarket chain, Iper, on the manufacture of PLA thermoformed trays and containers for fresh foods in place of polypropylene. The packaging consists of 12 sizes, categorised as small , medium , large and maxi , that offer a range of dimensions.

At its plant in Mont-de-Marsan, France, Autobar begins the production process by creating 330 micron film sheets from the NatureWorks PLA resin using a standard cast extrusion line. The extruded sheet is then thermoformed.

By using NatureWorks PLA instead of polypropylene, Autobar...