Wool Packaging Company will open its new packaging unit at Stone in Staffordshire, UK, next month.
Woolcool claims to extend an eco-friendly alternative to polymers for the food and pharmaceutical industries by using wool for packaging. It utilizes clean, coarse wool unfit for textiles.
The pure wool is felt and sealed in breathable film to create insulation for the delivery boxes and pouches. The hygroscopic wool fibres absorb and release moisture, maintaining stable temperatures.
A new mechanism will keep the medicines and food cool by maintaining the temperature between 2 and 8 degree Celsius for up to 150 hours, a two-fold rise from the standard 72 hours.
As a result, the Woolcool products offer an insulated packing capable of avoiding 50% loss of certain vaccines due to shortcomings in the cold chain distribution network.
The needle-felted wool has also proved beneficial for food packaging by allowing breathing space to the stored materials.
The facility is expected to create 50 jobs, of which 25 have already been filled.
