Packaging companies are falling over themselves to launch the most environment-friendly package and prove how environment-conscious they are, along with many fresh produce companies and retailers.
Once considered a passing fad, the green agenda is now a fixed priority and, even as the credit crunch bites, it remains at the forefront of fruit, vegetable and flower packaging design.
Italian packaging manufacturer ILIP prides itself on taking a leading role in environment-friendly production, and says its respect for the environment is a major priority. The company produces more than 200 different plastic items, including many kinds of packaging material for fruit and vegetables, such as fruit nest trays, punnets, clamshell containers and trays for large-scale retailing organisations, wholesalers and catering companies.
The company describes its recycled polythene terephthalate (R-PET) fruit and vegetable packaging as transparent, hardwearing and environment-friendly. The R-PET sheet ILIP uses is made of an inner layer of PET that comes from mechanical recycling, and two external layers of virgin material. “This technique allows us to use up to 80 per cent recycled material,” says ILIP export manager Mauro Stipa. “Our R-PET is the ideal material to guarantee a pack in line with growing demands to respect the environment, while observing current regulations on the approach to food contact.”
ILIP sends its fruit and vegetable packaging products to more than 50 countries around the world. The company has created many different types of packaging, such as fruit nest tray containers in polypropylene (PP), which have been designed for various kinds of round fruit like pears, kiwifruit and melons, punnets, which consist of a full catalogue of varying shapes, colours, capacities and materials, and clamshell containers available for 2-125g of loose fruit.
BoxMart - a £1.2 million turnover packaging provider of unbranded packaging for consumer-facing sectors, including florists - has released a posy box packaging for florists across its entire range that is 100 per cent recyclable.
Since the eco-conscious gift packaging was launched 12 months ago, BoxMart has seen a rapid growth in sales of 28 per cent across its product range.
In response to trade buyers’ requirement to gain a competitive edge and consumer demand for environment-friendly products, BoxMart sought to offer innovative and colourful packaging with a high recycled content.
The company has found that the implementation of water-based inks on most products and use of micro-flute material, in preference to solid board, results in a much more environment-friendly product.
“The market demands that gift packaging both looks good and is environmentally responsible,” says Joanne Offord, managing director of BoxMart. “At BoxMart, we have made it a priority to meet the two demands. Production of long runs of stock boxes rather than individual short run bespoke boxes is both economical and environmentally beneficial, and buyers have responded to these benefits.”
The BoxMart product range includes floristry, bottle, clear lid and hamper boxes, as well as many other gift boxes in a range of shapes and sizes. The new range has been welcomed onto the florist scene. “Consideration of the environment is now a requirement within our industry, and we have chosen to go green, red, blue, silver gold... the list goes on”, says Offord.
Bagged salad specialist Florette’s colourful, eye-catching packaging is an integral element of the company’s success story as the UK’s top-selling salad brand. “Compostable, environment-friendly packaging is standard at Florette, and attention to all aspects of packaging is a vital part of our brand strategy,” says Mark Newton, managing director. “Rightly, consumers are more and more concerned about provenance. Freshness and quality are key issues, which prompt customers to choose Florette. Increasingly, environmental questions are gaining importance with buyers and consumers; a trend which we thoroughly support.”
Florette is constantly working on ways it can make its packaging more environment-friendly, and the company’s packaging is 15 per cent thinner that it was over 10 years ago, when it first entered the market.
The environmental movement towards recyclable packaging is just the push forward that some industries have been waiting for. The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) already fits the criteria and, according to chairman Andrew Barnetson, it is just a matter of communicating what packaging companies can do for its customers within the fresh produce industry.
The CPI is the leading trade association for paper and related products, and has pulled together various organisations, such as the British Recovered Paper Association (BRPA) and Corrugated Packaging Association (CPA), in order to provide one voice to the media and government.
“Historically, the corrugated packaging industry has not really done enough to push forward how environment-friendly its product is,” says Barnetson. “We aim to build a better understanding of what we can produce, and the very important history we have with recycling - it is a strong environmental story.”
Corrugated paper has a high recycling rate of 84 per cent in the UK and, on average, three quarters of the average carton made in the country is put together out of fibres that have already been recycled. According to the CPI, the public does not realise how much corrugated paper or cardboard is recycled. “Retailers realise how much they can recycle, but the general public do not see how much is recycled behind the scenes, and how much they could do at home,” says Barnetson. “Recycling is efficiently done in retailers, but local governments seem opposed to recycling corrugated cardboard.”
The chairman believes that, apart from its environmental accreditations, corrugated paper makes business sense in three ways. “First, corrugated paper can be branded,” he says. “We can adapt and develop our packaging to display a company’s branding, which is not always available with some forms of packaging. Second, corrugated paper packaging is very space efficient. More so than plastics, corrugated paper can be manipulated to fit a lorry, meaning that fewer lorries are needed. We also provide shelf-ready packaging, so the fresh produce can be transported straight to the shelf. And third, its compatibility with transport is much better than plastics; corrugated is bespoke and can be changed to individual requirements.”
With 60 per cent of corrugated paper or cardboard in the UK going into retailers, it is a big concern, but Barnetson maintains that the packaging choice needs to be pushed forward. “People see single-trip packaging and assume it is going to be wasted,” he says. “But the industry has an advanced waste recycling system, where 84 per cent is re-used. We do need to add virgin material to keep the strength of the material high, but that is taken from sustainable sources. The system moves so quickly, and companies can have new boxes back within 14 days - the energy use is comparable to the washing of plastic crates. But the common opinion that re-usable is better than recycling is not necessarily true.”
Barnetson believes that corrugated cardboard is a very good form of packaging for fresh produce. “The potential of cross contamination which is possible when re-using plastic is eliminated with the use of corrugated cardboard and, with the fresh produce industry, health and safety has to come first,” he says.
The CPI introduced the “common footprint” two months ago in a commitment to producing a standardised, inter-stackable design for fresh produce trays. This design, known as CF3/CF4, is compatible with the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers’ CF1 and CF2 design, and the UK design can be stacked, large on two small or two small on one large. “It is a standard design and they are all the same size,” says Barnetson. “The boxes fit together snugly and safely and all corrugated suppliers will be held to this from now on. We identified demand for it, as no one wants trays of all different shapes and sizes, as they fall over each other. It is a way to standardise the industry.”
Linpac Packaging also believes the environmental argument is important, but points out that packaging must still serve its purpose. “We are well aware of the debate surrounding packaging and the environment, despite the energy used to produce packing accounting for only 10 per cent of the total energy used in the food chain,” says Adam Barnett, vice-president of marketing and innovation. “There has been a significant amount of media coverage calling for a reduction in food packaging to protect the environment. However, food packaging has an important role to play, especially when it comes to fresh produce, in protecting, preserving and presenting the product.
“We offer packaging solutions that are both fit for purpose and environmentally sound. Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is the ideal choice for many types of fresh produce because of its excellent protective qualities and a foamy texture, which prevents damage and bruising of fresh produce in transit. EPS is also an environmentally sound option because it is a lightweight material, minimising the amount of resources required for production. We also recommend the R-Fresh range of packaging, which has all the benefits of standard PET packaging, but contains recycled content,” says Barnett.
But as environmental concerns rise, along with them come commercial pressures. The current need for maximum flexibility in packaging operations and equipment, while reducing waste, is becoming even stronger as the demand to cut the amount of packaging accelerates. Packaging cannot just be ‘green’ any longer, and companies need to look at the bigger picture.
Sealed Air, a global supplier of protective and speciality packaging materials and systems, believes it is at the forefront of providing more flexibility in packaging, while fulfilling environmental objectives.
“Our innovation process includes a holistic approach that combines expertise in source reduction, recycling and the use of renewable resources,” says Helios Ruiz, European marketing director of Sealed Air’s shrink packaging business unit. “In our own operations, this includes sensible use of natural resources, decreasing energy and water use in the manufacturing process, reducing emissions, efficient use of raw materials and minimising total waste.
“Sealed Air is committed to refining and developing its shrink packaging to help our customers achieve their own environmental objectives, which involves using less fuel and reducing harmful emissions by providing higher performance, smaller and lighter packaging. It can also mean reducing the amount of materials used by eliminating the need for re-packaging.”
Ruiz says that Sealed Air has spent two decades developing sustainable products - from producing what it claims is the strongest thin shrink film available anywhere in the world, to developing technology to re-use product waste for energy in its manufacturing process.
Sealed Air develops shrink films that reduce the thickness of the overall package without sacrificing performance, while its shrink packaging uses recycled content in select shrink films, reducing the amount of materials sent to landfill sites as waste.
Sealed Air’s packaging design laboratory provides customers with free packaging design services to implement best practices. Its emphasis is on material source reduction, package weight reduction and overall packaging efficiency, while spearheading package cost optimisation, improved package appearance and product protection.
“We realise energy recovery objectives by identifying beneficial uses for recovered materials that cannot be recycled or re-used in our products,” says Ruiz. “For example, our plastic packaging materials contain high British thermal unit (BTU) fuel content, making the material an efficient source in waste-to-energy facilities.”
At the same time, Sealed Air’s shrink films can be placed into the recycling stream for use in other select, composite products, such as timber for decking, for instance.
It is not only Sealed Air’s shrink films that have been the focus of development - the company’s shrink packaging equipment is proving vital to enhancing packaging line flexibility. The company’s Shanklin Omni form-film-seal wrapper attributes include putting an end to production line inefficiency - with a consequent reduction in operating costs - by allowing the processing of a wide variety of products through the installation of one easy-to-use machine. The Omni uses multiple machines, and makes time-consuming changeovers a thing of the past.
The machine is offered with a range of unique plug-and-play in-feed modules, which can be changed for different products in just a few minutes. The high level of flexibility makes the Omni suitable for almost any quick product changeover.
“Because we simultaneously develop films and packaging systems, we are in an unrivalled position to help steer packaging users through all these developments by helping them identify the correct combination to achieve their environmental aims, without compromising performance and commercial targets,” says Ruiz.
Sealed Air is currently experimenting with biodegradable poly lactic acid (PLA) and starch-based materials to steer towards packaging’s sustainable future, along with conserving resources by using fewer raw materials and less energy to manufacture products. The company aims to reduce the number of truckloads needed to transport products in the future, enabling it to cut down on emissions that contribute to global climate change, and reduce waste disposal, as well as the costs of recycling, municipal composting and landfilling.
“We continue to refine our existing products to improve performance, and we work to identify and design new solutions that yield positive environmental impacts on the entire packaging chain,” Ruiz adds.
The less-is-more approach has been criticised by some packaging companies as irresponsible, and some retailers’ approach to reducing packaging, at the cost of product quality, has come under fire.
Linpac maintains that packaging is instrumental in preventing food waste, which is a huge problem in the UK, with an estimated 6.7m tonnes of food waste produced per year. When Asda removed packaging from 60 different varieties of fruit and vegetables, it found that twice as much produce was wasted - an increase from three to six per cent. In an Environmental Resources Management study, it was shown that apples sold loose, compared with those sold in shrink-wrapped packs of four, produced 27 per cent more waste from orchard to home.
Linpac is calling for environment-friendly packaging that is fit for purpose.
“At Linpac Packaging, we would urge retailers and wholesalers to choose packaging by considering how it protects, presents and preserves the product, as well as thinking of the environmental impact of the material the packaging is made from,” says Barnett. “Although consumers are becoming increasingly ‘green’, they also expect high-quality products and would be unlikely to accept damaged produce because of inadequate packaging.”
Looking to the future, Florette believes that the credit crunch will not affect its business or the public’s concern for the environment. “We expect the credit crunch to affect ‘big ticket’ choices, rather than items such as bagged salads. Our year-on-year double-digit growth (more than 19 per cent) would seem to bear this out, and we believe our prices must always match customer expectations,” says Newton. “Undoubtedly, the environment will continue to influence the sector, and we welcome this development.”
ALL CLIPPED UP WITH ILIP
AMONG THE packs in recycled polythene terephthalate (R-PET) packs produced by ILIP, the most innovative is Fast Clip, a transparent container capable of simplifying and speeding up fruit and vegetable packing operations. It is possible to close the cover of the container using just one hand instead of two, with a clip fastened to the bottom part of the pack.
Designed initially for grapes, Fast Clip has also been adapted to contain cherries, tomatoes and kiwifruit, and is made in both R-PET and poly lactic acid (PLA), a wholly biodegradable material derived from corn starch fermentation, that ILIP has now been using for its packs since 2003.
Fast Clip is fast, practical, hardwearing and reliable, and adds value, in terms of reducing the environmental impact.
SHRINKING COSTS OF BEING GREEN
PROVIDING THE strength and protection properties of films two, three and even four microns thicker, Sealed Air’s 11-micron Cryovac D955 is the ideal low-cost option offering less waste and easier disposal. Needing less heat to perform the shrinking function, each roll of D955 is up to 50 per cent longer than other shrink films, so accelerated product changeovers achieve further cost savings.
Packaging size is a major issue. Sealed Air’s new tear-resistant, versatile and resilient Cryovac Impact shrink film protects odd-shaped and sharp items, while also cutting costs. This tough, puncture-resistant, multi-layer, cross-linked polyolefin can be applied to distinctively shaped and bulky goods, with additional merchandising advantages at point of sale.
Cryovac Impact film can be used on all types of automatic machines. It is easy to use, stays taut and wrinkle-free, and does not crack at extreme temperatures. The film ensures the product will keep its original form under difficult conditions during shipping, retail stocking and customer handling.
The Cryovac range also includes a recycled material option, as does the Opti series of films, particularly the Opti 400. The company is currently testing the use of like material recycled content in other Cryovac and Opti shrink films.
CorTuff shrink film, with its 50 or 75 microns, uses significantly less material and has greater strength, clarity and overall performance than competitive polyethylene and PVC films, to replace corrugated and clamshell packaging.
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