Ventilated Stretch Film Compared With Standard Stretch Film

Both films are polyethylene, both are applied on the same wrappers, and both hold a load by being stretched. The difference is thirteen holes in every row, and that difference only matters if your pallet is producing heat or moisture.

What A Solid Film Does Well

A continuous stretch film seals the pallet. That gives you a dust barrier, protection against splash and rain during yard movements, and a smooth surface that will not catch on conveyor guides. For dry ambient goods that never change temperature, that is a good outcome.

Where A Solid Film Fails

The same seal that keeps water out keeps water in. A pallet wrapped while its goods are warm carries warm moist air inside the wrap. That air cools, drops below its dew point, and the vapour condenses on the nearest cool surface, which is the inside of the film and the outer cartons.

The results are familiar to anyone who has opened one of these pallets: a wet film face, soft carton corners, lifted labels and sometimes marking on bare metal.

What Ventilated Film Changes

Ventilated stretch film is designed to maximise the aeration of the product wrapped. Because of its perforated film structure it allows quicker cooling and drying of palletised goods. Thirteen perforations in every row give heat and vapour a route out, and give any water that does form a route to evaporate.

Containment does not disappear with them. The holes are formed within the film web rather than cutting across it, and the web still carries the published tensile stress at break for the grade.

Side By Side

When To Stay With A Solid Film

• Goods stored and shipped entirely at ambient with no temperature transitions
• Loads that need a genuine barrier against dust, splash or rain in an open yard
• Products where any exposure to airflow is a contamination risk in your own risk assessment

When To Switch

• Anything wrapped warm off a filling, retort or pasteurising line
• Produce carrying field heat
• Pallets that go into forced air, blast or room cooling after wrapping
• Loads that cross temperature zones repeatedly, including sea freight
• Any pallet that has arrived with soft cartons or unreadable labels