Tips for selecting aluminum foil for food packaging

The temper of a material is best described as the hardness or elasticity of the metal, or in our foil. The two extremes on the scale are simply labeled hard tempered foil or soft tempered foil.

Softened aluminum foils are by far the more common of the two types of packaging because they are more malleable of the two and are suitable for tightly wrapping around three-dimensional products, such as a bar of chocolate or a slab of butter. Softened tempered foils are also preferred foils for lamination.

Rigid tempered foil, on the other hand, is often used in stiffer packaging, such as blister packs or pill packaging. The relatively low burst strength of hard tempered foil makes it easier to push small objects like individual pills or batteries through the foil while maintaining the integrity of the remaining structure.

The soft tempered foil can tightly wrap objects from all three sects, such as the chocolate shown here. Hard tempered foil is stronger and can be punctured without affecting its overall strength. As shown here, it is ideal for blister packaging.

The gauge aluminum foil, or thickness can range from as thin as 0.235 mils to as thick as 2 mils. Typically, foils at the lower end of this range are laminated to film or paper, while foils at the upper end can be left alone to wrap the tops of champagne bottles. Gauges are usually measured in thousands of inches (aka Mil) or microns (aka Microns). Food and Confectionary Packaged Food Most foil packaging uses range from 0.23 million to 1 million.