Respack: Experts advocate for tube format expansion in food packaging

"With the Indian mindset, we squeeze everything till the end. The tube gives you a lot of room to squeeze everything out." MR Ramasamy, chief operating officer, EPL Limited, commenced his address to the attendees at Respack 2026 with this observation. The remark captured an ingrained consumer ritual exemplifying how households interact with flexible packaging. 

While oral care and cosmetic brands have built multi-billion-unit industries around this instinctual habit, the processed food sector is only just beginning to tap into its potential. Ramasamy, who chaired the panel, argued that tubes stand out because they are easy to use, neat, clean and result in very low residual leftovers. 

He pointed out that while conventional rigid packaging formats leave a massive amount of waste trapped inside, product leftovers in a tube do not exceed 2%. Conversely, while low-cost options like flexible sachets are widely used, they carry sharp physical limitations. "The content of the sachet can be limited to a certain size," Ramasamy observed. "When it goes beyond that size, it is not easy to use," he added

The multi-billion-unit growth runway
Despite functional advantages, the primary commercial hurdle for the tube market in India, is a sheer lack of scale within food channels. Globally, the numbers are massive—out of an estimated total food packaging tube market of about 45 billion numbers globally, EPL produces something like 9 billion, which is almost about 20% of the world market. Yet, within India, a stark imbalance persists. Ramasamy revealed that the revenue EPL gets out of food is actually extremely small, accounting for less than 3% of their total production. 

Rather than viewing this as a limitation, Ramasamy framed it as a massive commercial frontier. "So it's a huge opportunity when we look at it,” he said "We don't see this as a weakness, but we certainly see this as a strength because there is a lot of scope for growth."  

The transition, however, hinges on proving the format's circular credentials to cautious brand owners. While modern laminates are highly engineered, establishing structured collection pathways remains a distinct challenge in India. Unlike local PET ecosystems where bottle collection is widely organised, tube formats are not yet bound by strict, regulated collection infrastructure.  "While we continue to offer 100% recyclable material, whether it is really being recycled is a question," Ramasamy admitted. 

Monomaterials and detachable sleeves
Machinery and material suppliers are introducing radical design overhauls to unlock growth in the sector. Julius Laubli, head of research and development at Packsys Global, introduced two process innovations focused on plastic reduction and contamination-free recycling streams. Laubli detailed the development of nosho tubes, an innovative production technology that compression-molds the tube head and the closure lid in a single integrated process step.

"This reduces both the plastic, and the process steps involved. It can be done on existing Packsys machines," Laubli explained. Engineered for operational agility, these machines are made for quick changeover–going from regular tubes to nosho samples within half an hour. This allows manufacturers and brands to promptly test and ensure the required compliance for their food packaging. "Nosho tubes can also be made from PCR material and still remain compliant with global standards," Laubli explained. 
 
For markets facing strict plastic reduction mandates, Laubli also showcased the detachable tube–a hybrid concept designed to keep printing inks entirely out of the recycling stream. Instead of a single laminate, these tubes feature a two-layer body where the inner layer is a plastic barrier while the outer layer is an easily detachable paperboard.  By shifting the branding to an exterior sleeve, the design ensures cleaner material separation. "This means we do not have any more ink on the inner layer, which is an impurity for the recycling process" Laubli said. 

Eliminating inventory challenges 
While material changes solve the circularity puzzle, operational efficiency is still key to positioning tubes as a viable alternative to current food packaging. Miroslav Hinkov, chief executive officer at Mechatronica, shifted the focus to manufacturing line architectures built to handle a highly fragmented consumer market.  Hinkov outlined a set of global commercial challenges currently squeezing packaging plants, noting the need to increase the speed of the activity. 

However, modern brand owners are shifting away from massive single-product runs. "More and more plant owners are producing smaller numbers of a particular type of tube and instead focusing on making many different tubes for many brands," Hinkov said. “In regions like Europe, strict multi-language requirements dictate label configurations, and for each country you need to produce different tubes with different, which affects production budgets,” he added.  These batches affect overall operational efficiency and can prove to be a challenge for the Indian market too.

To break this rigid operational cycle, Mechatronica presented a modular machine framework based on a linear transport system using independent, computer-controlled transport cars or shuttles. "For example, you may work with two, three different toolings to be able to change the type of tube you’re making quickly," Hinkov explained. "You just set up the computer and load different cars, they will stop in different places."  

Hinkov advocated for an integrated machine that handles the entire manufacturing process in a single continuous cycle, taking one bit of foil, tube forming, shoulder heading, and transferring it directly to the filling, and then we have the filling, sealing. The business metrics behind this form-fill-seal integration are substantial. "If you do this on one machine, you save a lot," Hinkov urged. "The machine is cheaper, because it combines two processes, and sticks some processes that are not required." This consolidation results in less production space and heavily reduced logistics. 

Furthermore, this continuous method addresses strict food-safety protocols. "When you have one machine that is making tubes and filling them immediately, this  ensures no contamination, because the tubes are not stored waiting to be transported,” he explained. 

Navigating food barrier complexity

Closing the technical presentations, K Hariharan, president of creativity and innovation at EPL Limited, detailed the specific chemistry and barrier engineering required to make tubes a staple choice for packaging food. "One very critical thing is having a strong understanding, not only of the chemistry, but also the regulatory space," Hariharan stated.

To guide food processors, Hariharan mapped out an ascending design complexity cycle based on four distinct product sensitivity levels. Level one addresses stable products like honey. "In terms of honey, to a great extent, it is a stable product, but we need to have a very strong protection for moisture," he said.  EPL developed a commercial solution for a premium white berry honey brand in Kerala utilising a clear, all-polyethylene structure.

Level two covers oxygen-sensitive condiments like tomato ketchup and wasabi, where the product is highly sensitive to oxygen and traditional metal foil layers create recycling friction. "There are flavour components here which actually change the colour," Hariharan said. "Wasabi goes from light green to dark green and ketchup turns from a bright red to a darker hue. For these applications, prefer bodies with a very high oxygen barrier.” he explained.

Level three deals with highly volatile vegetable items like ginger-garlic paste, where the barrier dynamic flips entirely. "Till now we were protecting the product from outside to inside, but here the migration happens from inside to outside," Hariharan noted. "These are very small polyethylene organic compounds which can easily pass through the barrier in the shoulder. If these volatile essential oils escape, the product loses flavour. To lock the taste profile, factories must opt for shoulder barriers using specialised compounds,” he added. 

The final tier, level four, covers high-protein, neutral-pH items such as tuna paste where the packaging must survive thermal sterilisation. "The moment it is retorted, polyethylene is out of scope because the temperature is almost close to 124-155-degrees celsius," Hariharan said. EPL resolved this by using a polypropylene in the body which is a barrier laminate. Further, the shoulder and the cap use polypropylene, ensuring the entire structure survives the retort cooker and remains fully recyclable. 

A chemically recycled future
Looking to the future, the panel agreed that the humble tube is undergoing a permanent shift away from metal foils toward sophisticated monomaterial structures. "Sustainability is having a central stage here," Hariharan noted, as the industry moves more for more plastic barriers.

As urban Indian consumers increasingly gravitate toward portion convenience in cooking pastes and gourmet condiments, the momentum behind the format appears unstoppable. "The way pharma and BPC have adopted tube packaging, I'm sure another big segment which can really grow well will be food packaging," Hariharan predicted.