Polythene film printing company Polyprint is set to expand in the food packaging sector after securing a key industry standard.

The firm, which employs 60 people at its base on the Rackheath, is the UK's leading printer of polythene mailing films, such as magazine covers and polythene envelopes.

And the company has now secured British Retail Consortium (BRC) certification for packaging and packaging materials, a global food industry standard which will help increase its presence in the sector.

While the company has supplied some orders for outer food packaging, the BRC certification has enabled the company to offer 'primary-contact' packaging, which comes into direct contact with food.

It requires companies to adopt and implement hazard and risk analysis, have a documented quality management system and to control environment standards, products, processes and personnel.

Managing director Jonathan Neville, who co-founded the company with Brian Pitcher in 1988, said the BRC mark had allowed the company to provide packaging such as bags for bread, salad, potatoes and other vegetables.

He said: 'Achieving BRC certification opens up a whole new market for us. We have a national and international reputation for the quality of our printing and the excellence of our service.

'Now we are going to take that reputation and expertise into the food sector, where we are already finding that it is much in demand.'

He added: 'We think the potential is huge if it is played right.

'There are big boys out there who produce tonnes of this packaging, but they don't want to do smaller runs. We could get a niche in the market.'

The company reported turnover of �7.7m in 2009, the latest year for which its accounts have been published.

Mr Neville said the economic climate had affected trade, coupled with increases in the price of polythene, which he said had risen 40pc since January 2010.

But he said he hoped orders in the food sector would 'start to gain momentum' when the company name was known in the trade.