Aluminium foil acts as a total barrier to light and oxygen (which cause fats to oxidise or become rancid), odours and flavours, moistness, and germs, it is used broadly in food and pharmaceutical packaging. The purpose of aluminium is to make long-life packs (aseptic processing|aseptic packaging) for drinks and dairy goods, which allows storing without refrigeration. Aluminium foil containers and trays are used to bake pies and to pack takeaway meals, ready snacks and long life pet foods.

Aluminium foil is widely sold into the consumer market, often in rolls of 500 mm (20 in) width and several metres in length.It is used for wrapping food in order to preserve it, for example, when storing leftover food in a refrigerator (where it serves the additional purpose of preventing odour exchange), when taking sandwiches on a journey, or when selling some kinds of take-away or fast food. Tex-Mex restaurants in the United States, for example, typically provide take-away burritos wrapped in aluminium foil.

Aluminium foils thicker than 25 μm (1 mil) are impermeable to oxygen and water. Foils thinner than this become slightly permeable due to minute pinholes caused by the production process.

Aluminium foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The shiny side is produced when the aluminium is rolled during the final pass. It is difficult to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to cope with the foil gauge, therefore, for the final pass, two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the gauge at entry to the rollers. When the sheets are later separated, the inside surface is dull, and the outside surface is shiny. This difference in the finish has led to the perception that favouring a side has an effect when cooking. While many believe that the different properties keep heat out when wrapped with the shiny finish facing out, and keep heat in with the shiny finish facing inwards, the actual difference is imperceptible without instrumentation.The reflectivity of bright aluminium foil is 88% while dull embossed foil is about 80%.

We provide a full range of precision aluminum strip for almost any application. We produce aluminum strip in a wide variety of alloys, including clad composites. Our aluminum strip can be produced in standard dimensions or custom made to your special requirements. We produce both imperial and metric units. We manufacture in compliance with the main international specifications, and tighter tolerances or custom tempers are available upon request. We offer various surface conditions, custom finishes (painting, anodizing, embossing), special processing, and multiple packaging options to meet our customer's unique requirements. The following is a summary of our capabilities.

Manufactured in compliance with the main international specifications and standards, including:  Aluminum Association, ASTM, EN, and DIN.
We can also manufacture in compliance with other international standards including:ASME, SAE, AMS, AWS, FED, MIL, QQ, ISO, BS, AFNOR, JIS and GOST.

Manufactured in compliance with the main international specifications and standards.
Tighter tolerances are available upon request.

Aluminium alloys with a wide range of properties are used in engineering structures. Alloy systems are classified by a number system (ANSI) or by names indicating their main alloying constituents (DIN and ISO).

The strength and durability of aluminium alloys vary widely, not only as a result of the components of the specific alloy, but also as a result of heat treatments and manufacturing processes. A lack of knowledge of these aspects has from time to time led to improperly designed structures and gained aluminium a bad reputation.

One important structural limitation of aluminium alloys is their fatigue strength. Unlike steels, aluminium alloys have no well-defined fatigue limit, meaning that fatigue failure eventually occurs, under even very small cyclic loadings. This implies that engineers must assess these loads and design for a fixed life rather than an infinite life.