Pre-stretch explained: more wrap from less film

Stretch film is elongated before it reaches the load. On a wrapping machine that happens between two powered rollers on the carriage, the second turning faster than the first, so the film is drawn out on its way to the pallet. With a pre-stretched film the elongation has already been done before the roll leaves the factory, and the operator applies film already taken most of the way to its working length.

Pre-stretch is quoted as a percentage of the film's original length. Toreto's own plant wrap test ran every solid film at the 250% power stretch setting, which means each metre unwound from the roll arrived on the pallet as more than twice that length. You buy film by weight and consume it by the metre. Pre-stretch is what sits between the two.

A roll is bought by weight and price, and used by the metre. Anything that increases the metres of secure containment you get out of a kilogram lowers the cost of every pallet, whether or not the number on the box changes. That is why comparing film by micron compares the wrong thing: micron tells you what you paid for, not whether the load arrives standing.

Toreto's Hypersonic is a factory pre-stretched 620 mm film built for precisely this — more metres of stable wrap per kilogram, fewer roll changes and less weight handled on the line. Aerosonic Lite takes the same idea into breathable film: pre-stretched beyond 300%, macro-perforated with large aeration holes, and wrapping in a single layer where competing materials need several.

The two are not interchangeable. Power stretch on the machine is elongation you get for nothing, and it can be tuned to the load on the day. But it depends on a carriage in good order, settings nobody has quietly overridden, and film that will genuinely stretch. When any of those slips, the film goes on short of the length it was meant to cover, and consumption climbs without anyone changing a supplier.

Film pre-stretched at the factory carries its yield with it. It behaves the same on a tired machine, in a hand-wrapping bay, or at the end of a long shift, because the elongation is not being asked of the equipment. The trade is that the stretch level is fixed when the roll is made, so you match the film to the load rather than adjusting the carriage.

Stretch a film close to its limit and there is little elongation left in it when it meets a sharp corner. It snaps rather than yielding, and the wrap unzips from the tear. Toreto's plant test shows the shape of that limit. 12µ nano film at 250% power stretch went on at 91 g for about €0.32 a pallet, the lightest film on the sheet, and held 7.6 kg/sq in — the weakest result in the whole test.

Because nano depends on a perfect machine and perfect settings, most users end up wrapping it twice. Two passes lift holding to 11.9 kg/sq in, but the pallet then carries 182 g at about €0.64 and the wrapper produces half as many pallets a shift. Reinforced 16µ Supersonic held 10 kg/sq in on 66 g at about €0.32 in the same test. These are Toreto's own measurements; costs vary with film price and pallet size.

The general rule that falls out of it is worth writing on the wall. Yield and containment are separate properties. Stretch buys metres. Structure buys holding. A film engineered for both beats a film pushed to the end of one of them.

Perforated film complicates the picture, because the aeration holes only do their job once the film has been drawn out. Photograph Aerosonic before and after power stretching and the difference is plain: the holes open wide and the reinforcing strands stay intact. The airflow the buyer paid for arrives at the moment of stretch, not on the roll.

Toreto's own field experience with competing perforated films is that this is exactly where they fall down. On the roll they look the same. In use their holes barely open, because the film itself will not stretch — an inherent weakness in the material. The customer has bought perforation and received a fraction of the airflow. Aerosonic's hole size and density are engineered to the load instead.

Hand wrapping is usually where pre-stretch is lost, because there is no carriage to do it. The Hyper Wrap System is Toreto's answer: Hypersonic Efficiency Film in 500 mm or 620 mm on its dispenser frame, sold only as one system, never as a roll. The film is at least twice as strong as ordinary pre-stretch, and the frame with a full roll of film on it weighs about 3 kg.

It was measured in the field in the United Kingdom in August 2026. A pallet that had arrived machine-wrapped with several film failures had its film cut off and weighed: 181 g, £0.60 of film, two minutes and £0.40 of labour — £1.00 in total. Rewrapped by hand from the dispenser, the same pallet took 151 g, £0.54 of film, one minute and £0.20 of labour: £0.74. That is 26% off, in half the time, with labour at £0.20 a minute.

The 50% saving there is in metres, not weight: half as many metres went on because the film is stronger and wider, while the weight fell only from 181 g to 151 g. Andy Chinnery, who ran the test, put the ergonomics plainly: “I am 64 years old and have a bad back, yet I still achieved an excellent result with ease.”