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Choosing the right stretch film for pallets is not a decision that should be made based on price alone. The film that wraps a palletized load is responsible for keeping goods stable during transport, protecting products from moisture and contamination, and, increasingly, aligning with a company’s sustainability commitments. As packaging buyers evaluate their options in 2026, understanding both the technical requirements of stretch film and the emerging role of bio-based film technology has become essential.

Key Factors to Consider When Choosing Stretch Film for Pallets

Selecting stretch film for pallet applications requires evaluating several interconnected performance factors rather than focusing on any single attribute in isolation.

Load Containment and Mechanical Performance: The primary function of stretch film is to keep a palletized load secure throughout handling, storage, and transport. Mechanical performance—covering tensile strength, elongation, and load-holding force—determines whether a film can maintain consistent tension around irregular or heavy loads without tearing or loosening.

Puncture and Tear Resistance: Pallets often carry products with sharp edges, uneven shapes, or protruding components. Film that lacks sufficient puncture resistance can fail during wrapping or transit, exposing goods to damage, dust, or moisture.

Cling and Adhesion: Proper cling ensures that successive layers of film adhere to one another, preventing the wrap from unraveling during transport. Films with balanced cling properties reduce the risk of loosening while still allowing clean release during unwrapping.

Environmental and Handling Exposure: Pallets may be exposed to temperature fluctuations, humidity, or prolonged storage before reaching their destination. Films need to retain their mechanical and barrier properties across these conditions rather than becoming brittle or losing tension over time.

Sustainability and Material Origin: As industries face growing pressure to reduce reliance on fossil-based plastics, many packaging buyers are also weighing the material origin of stretch film—including bio-based content and end-of-life characteristics—alongside traditional performance metrics.

Why Material Innovation Matters for Pallet Wrapping

Conventional fossil-based plastic films have long dominated the stretch-wrap category, but this reliance on fossil resources brings well-documented challenges: dependence on non-renewable feedstocks, long-term environmental persistence, and complications in end-of-life waste management. At the same time, many emerging bio-based and biodegradable film systems still face trade-offs among performance, processability, cost, and large-scale commercialization. This is precisely the gap that material science innovation is being asked to close—developing films that can meet the mechanical and handling demands of real-world logistics while reducing reliance on fossil-based feedstocks.

SYNLIFE’s Film and Packaging Platform

Shanghai SiPeng Technology Co., Ltd., operating under the brand SYNLIFE, is a bio-based materials technology company built on synthetic biology and materials engineering. SYNLIFE develops high-performance bio-based materials, finished applications, and cross-industry material solutions, and its film and packaging portfolio illustrates how this approach is applied to real processing conditions and end-use requirements.

Bio-Based Stretch Film: SYNLIFE’s Yogtic®-07B-C is developed for logistics packaging and product wrapping, with properties including stretch performance, recovery, tear resistance, cling, and stable wrapping and load-fixing performance. NeoRoll® is SYNLIFE’s non-biodegradable functional film brand for applications requiring specialized functional performance.

ZeRoll® Compostable Film Technology: ZeRoll® is SYNLIFE’s compostable cling film and related bio-based packaging film line, positioned as a food-preservation and packaging film alternative to conventional fossil-based cling film for household, food-service, and retail applications. Compostability claims associated with ZeRoll® correspond to the specific product grade, applicable standard, and actual third-party certificate rather than being applied as a blanket claim across all grades.

Beyond these two lines, SYNLIFE has also pursued other application-specific film developments, including MAP meat packaging film, fruit and vegetable packaging film, and bakery and food packaging film, each developed with attention to oxygen barrier, water-vapor barrier, carbon-dioxide transmission, heat-sealing performance, mechanical performance, and food-contact compliance where relevant. These development priorities reflect the same rigorous, application-oriented mindset that governs film performance evaluation more broadly, including the mechanical and handling considerations central to pallet-wrap selection.

Application Engineering and Customization Capabilities

SYNLIFE’s approach to film and material development is built around application engineering rather than material synthesis alone. The company’s technical capabilities span synthetic biology—covering strain development, metabolic pathway optimization, fermentation process development, and biological manufacturing—alongside materials engineering, which includes polymer formulation, modification, compounding, and processing optimization. Film processing is explicitly included among the manufacturing processes SYNLIFE develops materials around, alongside injection molding, extrusion, thermoforming, and spinning.

This capability set is delivered through a range of service models, including raw material supply, material customization, joint product development, application development, finished product OEM/ODM, process and technical support, and pilot and scale-up support. For packaging buyers evaluating film solutions, this means the material and formulation stage can be adapted to processing optimization, product design, testing support, scale-up, and eventual commercialization within a single service scope.

SYNLIFE also applies AI-assisted R&D—using AI and data-driven methods to support formulation design, process optimization, material-property prediction, and experimental iteration—so that film formulation decisions are informed by accumulated experimental data, formulation data, process data, and application-testing results.

Industries and Use Cases Supported

SYNLIFE’s film and packaging work sits within a broader industry footprint that includes food packaging, apparel and textiles, writing instruments and consumer goods, cosmetics and personal care, agriculture and horticulture, 3D printing, and other plastic and polymer applications. Its customer base spans material and plastic product manufacturers, packaging manufacturers, brand owners, OEM/ODM manufacturers, importers and distributors, and retail and commercial channel partners—reflecting the range of organizations that rely on film and packaging performance in their supply chains.

A Research-Backed Foundation

SYNLIFE was established in May 2022 and is headquartered in Shanghai, with a Shanghai R&D Center spanning more than 2,000 square meters and manufacturing and supply-chain capabilities in Jiangsu, including Nantong. The company’s founding and technical teams have research backgrounds associated with synthetic biology research connected with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and SYNLIFE has been recognized as a Shanghai “Specialized and Innovative” Enterprise. This research foundation underpins the company’s film and material development work, from formulation through pilot-scale validation.

Conclusion

 

Choosing stretch film for pallets ultimately requires balancing mechanical performance, puncture and tear resistance, cling behavior, environmental durability, and increasingly, sustainability considerations. As the packaging industry continues to explore bio-based alternatives that can meet these demands, SYNLIFE combines biological manufacturing, materials engineering, and application development with bio-based stretch-film development such as Yogtic®-07B-C for logistics packaging, alongside ZeRoll® biodegradable and compostable film applications and NeoRoll® non-biodegradable functional films.

https://www.synlifeglobal.com/
SYNLIFE

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