How BioGuard™ OGR Paper Is Tested | BiOrigin Specialty Products Blog

When it comes our to oil and grease resistant (OGR) paper, not all tests tell the full story. At BiOrigin Specialty Products, we’ve spent years developing BioGuard™ grades that perform in real-world foodservice applications, not just in the lab. Along the way, we learned something important: many traditional testing methods simply aren’t rigorous enough to meaningfully measure how our paper performs.

The Problem with Traditional Testing

For decades, the paper industry has relied on the Kit test as the standard measure of oil and grease resistance. The Kit test was originally designed for earlier generations of chemistry and was created to evaluate surface staining. The higher the Kit number, the more resistance the paper was considered to have.

Here’s the issue: today’s barrier chemistries like BioGuard™ work differently. They’re engineered to prevent bleed-through, meaning grease and oil don’t penetrate the sheet, but the Kit test measures surface staining, not bleed-through. And with most modern barrier chemistries, including ours, some surface staining is possible.

What Actually Matters: Bleed-Through

For converters and the foodservice industry, bleed-through, not surface staining, is what truly matters. So, while some OGR products could show staining with a kit test, the oil and grease may not penetrate the paper.

Because of that disconnect, staining-based tests don’t always reflect real-world performance. In fact, they can mask meaningful differences between products that all “pass” at a basic level but perform very differently in demanding applications.

The Tests BSP Relies On

Rather than relying on a single industry shortcut, BioGuard™ grades are evaluated using a battery of tests, many of which are driven directly by customer requirements. Some customers, for example, use condiment testing with items like ketchup, mustard, salad dressing, and oils to simulate real food contact scenarios (all of which our product holds up to).

Kitchen Oil Test

The kitchen oil test is a common test used by food service converters. It’s a solid baseline, but it doesn’t differentiate between tiers of grease resistance. For quality control and tier differentiation, we needed something more demanding.

Hot Crisco Test

BSP’s primary quality control test for BioGuard™ is the hot Crisco test. Hot oil is harder to block than room-temperature oil, which makes it a more rigorous and accurate measure of real-world performance. Critically, it allows us to clearly differentiate between our three BioGuard™ tiers.

Condiment and Application-Specific Tests

Some customers have their own battery of tests. If a customer uses a specific test, BSP will run it. Our goal is to meet your standards, not just our own.

Three Tiers. Clear Differentiation.

BioGuard™ comes in three levels of grease resistance, designed to match the specific demands of different applications:

BioGuard™ Value — Built for applications where traditional Kit 3 papers have been used. Think light food service wraps and low-grease applications.
BioGuard™ — Our flagship grade. Targeted at markets where Kit 5 papers have historically been specified, including greasy burger wrappers and basket liners.
BioGuard™ Plus — Maximum resistance for high-demand applications like theater popcorn bags, where Kit 7 papers have traditionally been required.

In every tier, nothing bleeds through. That’s the promise BioGuard™ delivers and the standard we test to.

Designed for Real-World Performance

Testing methodology matters. The Kit test was a useful tool for a previous generation of chemistry, but BioGuard™ is built for how food packaging actually performs in the real world, and we test it that way.

Find which BioGuard™ grade is right for your application, contact us today.