SEPTEMBER 2010
SPECIAL REPORT
www.canadianpackaging.com
Niagara-on-the-Lake Niagara-on-the-Lake
Packaging Summit September September 17, 17, 18 18 && 19, 19, 2010 2010
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A Collaborative Partnership to Advance Packaging for Sustainability and Food Safety
INSIDE:
LEADING BY EXAMPLE PAGES 3-4 CLEANING UP OUR ACT PAGES 19-28 OUR BEST WISHES PAGE 5 Coverage of the Canadian Packaging Sustainability Roundtable 2010 PLAYING IT SAFE PAGES 7-8 MEASURED RESPONSE PAGES 30-34 FOOD CHAIN REACTION PAGE 10 Results of the exclusive Canadian Packaging industry survey on MEMBERSHIP REWARDS PAGES 12-16 packaging sustainability
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PROFILE
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Venerable packaging industry group making the most of a new lease on life on its 60th anniversary with a redefined strategic focus and changing priorities BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE
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f problems and challenges are really opportunities in disguise, then Jim Downham—president and chief executive officer of the Toronto-headquartered industry group PAC - The Packaging Association, is undoubtedly an opportunist par excellence. In fact, overcoming serious adversity has been the order of business since the very first day of Downham’s role as the new head of the venerable association celebrating its 60th anniversary this year—having had inherited a financially-strapped group five years ago that at the time was merely a week or two away from full-out bankruptcy, as Downham recalls. “I really don’t like using the term ‘deathbed,’ but the reality is that PAC was about a week away from completely running out of cash when I took over in the spring of 2006,” Downham told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview, explaining the dramatic cost-cutting and a radical shift in the association’s strategic focus necessitated not only by the bleak financial picture threatening the very existence of what was then called the Packaging Association of Canada (PAC), but also the fundamental changes sweeping through the Canadian packaging industry and community at large since the turn of the century. “Business as usual was simply no longer an option either for the association or for the member-companies that it was mandated to serve,” says the group’s affable, hardworking, high-
FALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
energy president who spent the lion’s share of his professional career working in the private sector for some of Canada’s leading packaging products and materials manufacturers prior to taking reins at PAC, which is currently comprised of 375 corporate and over 1,500 associate members. “For one thing, we have had a dramatic erosion of manufacturing activity in Canada—losing a lot of it to lowcost countries like China,” Downham explains, “while also seeing a lot of Canadian head offices and plants being closed down by their U.S.-based parent companies following the implementation of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and the onset of economic globalization in general.” While Downham put his management skills to astute use in downsizing PAC corporate structure and operations into a “lean and efficient” enterprise to ensure the group’s immediate survival, he also recognized an urgent need for the PAC to fundamentally alter its strategic direction and raison d’être in order to retain its relevancy in the 21st Century global manufacturing landscape. “An industry association must be a reflection of the economy and the times in any industry, and there was certainly a big challenge for our organization to embrace new ways of thinking and doing things in order not to be marginalized out of existence,” Downham reflects. “That’s why we undertook a strategic review of all aspects of our operations in order to revamp PAC into a forwardlooking, business-like enterprise that treats its members as customers,” he adds. One of the more radical and far-
PAC president and chief executive officer Jim Downham welcoming hundreds of delegates and attendees to a recent annual Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conference in Toronto, which has emerged as one of the most highly anticipated and well-attended events for Canada’s packaging sector and its customers in the consumer packaged goods marketplace.
reaching strategic shifts initiated under Downham’s leadership focused on active recruitment of Canada’s leading retailers into the PAC fold—a formidable task in light of the existence of numerous retailing industry groups already catering to the needs of Canada’s retail sector. According to Downham, the group’s success in wooing prominent retailing heavyweights such as Walmart, Sobeys and Metro to join the group—as well as prominent foodservice operators like McDonald’s, Cara (Harvey’s and Swiss Chalet) and KFC—comes down to being able to offer a real value proposition based on the group’s extenContinues on page 4
WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 3
PROFILE LEADING BY EXAMPLE Continued from page 3
sive experience and expertise in the packaging business, and leveraging that know-how into practical expert assistance and advice on packaging-related issues ranging from environmental sustainability to food and consumer safety. “We had to change our focus significantly towards retailers because in today’s business environment, it is really the large retailers who are the biggest driving force shaping consumer behavior and mindset, as well as the supply chain,” Downham asserts. “This is a notable departure from the way things used to be, when major brand-owners and CPG manufacturers used to dominate the consumer agenda. “These days, over 20 per cent of all the products sold at Canada’s retail stores are in fact private-label products, which essentially puts the retailers into direct competition with the leading brand-owners, in addition to being their customers. “There’s a whole new set of dynamics at play for the packaging industry as a result of this shift, and it was imperative for PAC to embrace it,” he states. This shifting balance of power in the Canadian consumer marketplace was also accompanied by the rapid emergence of environmental and packaging sustainability as one of the industry’s dominant hot-button issues, notes Downham, which enabled PAC to position itself as a leading authoritative voice and champion of sustainable packaging—in the process closely aligning itself with Walmart Canada Corp. and the retailer’s much-lauded Packaging Scorecard supplier evaluation system designed to encourage Walmart’s product and packaging suppliers to make significant cuts in the amount of packaging shipped to Walmart stores. To date, PAC has already produced and managed four annual Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conferences— each of them a highly anticipated and well-attended event drawing hundreds of top-level Canadian packaging and CPG industry professionals in Toronto to hear the latest progress reports on Walmart’s Packaging Scorecard initiative, take in informative presentations and discussions related to packaging sustainability, and see live demonstrations of the growing range of new, 4 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
environmentally-friendly packaging technologies and solutions offered to the marketplace by Canadian and international packaging suppliers. To reinforce its credentials as a leading independent authority on packaging sustainability, the PAC also formed a close partnership arrangement with the U.S.-based Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) for joint development of The Essentials of Sustainable Packaging 2-day course and the promotion of common standards, criteria and definitions to enable CPG manufacturers and brand-owners to reduce their environmental footprint in a proactive way that minimizes the potential threat of heavy-handed government regulations and new financial obligations being imposed on the industry in both Canada and the U.S., according to Downham. “Reaching into the U.S. marketplace had become a vital priority for us because realistically, our only opportunity for meaningful growth as an industry association in the future lies in reorienting our strategic thinking along the lines of a North-South orientation and positioning,” states Downham, explaining PAC’s recent rebranding and name change that resulted in the dropping of ‘Canada’ reference from the group’s acronym. To that end, PAC has already produced over 10 well-attended workshops on packaging sustainability in several large U.S. cities, relates Downham, while its interactive PAC Green Den sustainable packaging competition—debuting to an enthusiastic response in Toronto last year—has been already scheduled as one of the main feature attractions for the upcoming PACK EXPO International biennial packaging technologies exhibition of the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) in Chicago later this year. Having also identified food safety as one of the packaging industry’s most pressing issues, Downham says he takes immense personal and professional pride in PAC’s development of the PACsecure food safety certification program—designed specifically for the needs of packaging suppliers to the food industry and incorporating the essential elements of the HACCP (Hazardous Analysis and Critical Control Points) certification process widely employed across the North American
food manufacturing industries. As part of its focus on food safety, PAC has also recently teamed up with the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors (CCGD) to produce and manage the upcoming Packaging Summit in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., Sept. 17-19, which will bring together some of the world’s leading authorities in food safety and packaging sustainability to address common issues underpinning and linking the two subject areas that Downham maintains are critical to the long-term viability of the Canadian packaging industry. Says Downham: “While no one in the food industry questions the importance of safe and clean food processing practices, up to now very few food processors really understood the importance of the key role that packaging plays in the delivery of safe food products to the consumers. “We are hoping that the Packaging Summit conference will address that gap, while also exploring in detail the complementary relationship that exists between food safety and packaging sustainability,” he says. While Downham says he’s fairly pleased with the resilience and display of industry leadership demonstrated by PAC over the last five years to revitalize the group’s viability and relevance, he insists that there is still a lot of hard work ahead to cement its place among the world’s leading packaging industry associations. “I feel much more confident and optimistic than I did five years ago,” sums up Downham, “but there is still a lot of work to be done in educating the consumers, governments and businesses about the important role that packaging plays in the consumer society’s ongoing evolution and development. “And I feel tremendously privileged and gratified to have an important role to play in helping position the Canadian packaging industry on the cutting edge of that leadership mission.” CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
PUBLISHER’S MESSAGE
OUR BEST WISHES!
How an inspired notion became an iconic institution
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harles Cornell had a great notion back in 1948. Working at the time as an assistant editor of the f ledgling Canadian Packaging magazine—then owned by Maclean-Hunter—Cornell approached several Canadian-based companies in the packaging business to f loat an idea of forming a national packaging association that would act as a single unified voice and advocate for their interests. One early naysayer, a senior executive at Dominion Paper Box, was deeply unimpressed by the idea. “If you’re serious about this, you better lock yourself up in a closet for 48 hours and think it over really well,” the skeptical exec suggested. Undaunted, Cornell ignored this early advice and orchestrated a survey of more than 2,500 manufacturers across the country to get their feedback to his idea. As it turned out, Canadian packagers resoundingly endorsed Cornell’s notion and vision—prompting him to proceed to organize a steering committee to help bring his idea into reality. The first meeting of the original steering committee was held on October 18, 1949, in the boardroom of the Toronto Board of Trade building. This inaugural meeting focused on three fundamentals: formation of a packaging institute; formation of a packaging association; and the feasibility of holding a packaging exposition in Canada. Less than a year later, on November 1, 1950, the newly-formed Packaging Association of Canada (PAC) held its first organizing meeting at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto and the rest, as they say, is history. Although much has changed in the Canadian packaging business since then, 60 years later PAC remains a prominent and authoritative force in the Canadian packaging landscape. In fact, serving the interests of both packaging suppliers and their end-user customers in equal measure makes PAC unique among all major packaging association worldwide— nobly distinguished by virtue of serving the entire packaging constituency, rather than narrow industry segments. Naturally, the group’s focus and sphere of inf luence has also greatly evolved over time. Today, PAC - The Packaging Association is doing an admirable job of fulfilling its mandate by staying in tune with all the swift changes impacting the Canadian economy and packaging industry on a daily basis—offering unrivaled expertise and educational resources to help Canadian companies navigate their way through key packaging industry issues such as sustainability, food and plant safety, exporting and trade. For its part, the Canadian Packaging magazine—now part of Canada’s media and communications leader Rogers Communications Inc.—remains immensely proud of the key early role that our publication played in the launch of this vitally important industry organization. As it celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, we wish the PAC and its many members many more years of continued success and vitality! Sincerely, Stephen Dean Senior Publisher Canadian Packaging
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PLAYING IT SAFE
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Venerable food giant bounces back from the brink with a drastic overhaul of its food safety practices and plant sanitation regimen
hile most Canadian consumers generally tend to take food safety for granted, especially when purchasing products from one of the country’s most renowned food manufacturers, the nasty 2008 listeriosis outbreak that thrust the Toronto-headquartered giant Maple Leaf Foods Inc. onto the front pages of daily papers and magazines for a few weeks for all the wrong reasons was a sobering reminder that deadly food-bourne contamination is an omnipresent risk that makes no distinction between the victimized companies’ size, reputation or track record. But as painful as the infamous outbreak was for the company’s long-cultivated corporate image and brand recognition, it did spur the Toronto-based consumer packaged foods heavyweight—employing about 23,500 people at over 100 operations across Canada and the U.S., Mexico, U.K and Asia— to embark on a topto-bottom overhaul of its food safety and quality control practices designed to make the 83-year-old company a global leader in food safety, according to the Maple Leaf Consumer Foods senior vice-president of food safety and quality assurance Sharon Beals. Beals says the intensive, companywide effort to enhance food safety performance is essential to regaining the trust of the Canadian consumers, who account for the bulk of the company’s worldwide revenues of $5.2 billion, while rekindling their fondness for iconic brands such as the Maple Leaf and Schneiders meat products, Dempster’s breads, Olivieri prepared pastas and other industry-leading brand labels. Naturally this keen focus on food safety goes hand-in-hand with the company’s well-entrenched dedication to retailing its products in the most reliable, innovative and convenient packaging available in the marketplace, says Beals, citing the firm’s 49-year membership in PAC - The FALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
Packaging Association, as well as several recent new product launches brimming with packaging and product innovation. While Beals says she is looking forward to sharing her company’s progress at the upcoming Packaging Summit in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., Sept. 17-19, as one of the featured conference speakers, she recently took time to talk to Canadian Packaging editor George Guidoni about Maple Leaf ’s ongoing food safety initiatives and their impact on the way it packages its products. Q: Where does food safety rank among Maple Leaf Foods’ core corporate priorities?
A: Food safety is the very underpinning of how Maple Leaf Foods operates. Our goal is to become a global leader in food safety, and our strategy to achieve this is based on some key platforms and strategies that are enmeshed throughout all parts of our organization: • Building a high-performing food safety organization; • Proactively mitigating risks; • Unifying our food safety and quality management systems; • Building a strong supplier base; • Leading the industry to higher standards. The corporate commitment starts right with our chief executive officer Michael McCain and reaches down to every level of the organization. Q : How does this commitment manifest itself on a daily basis?
A: The intensity and commitment of the executive team to food safety is well-illustrated in our 8:30 morning calls every morning, when we discuss microbiological results from our Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP). This is a rigorous testing regimen put in place nearly two years ago to detect and, more importantly, to seek ways to eradicate Listeria in our RTE (Ready-to-Eat) manufacturing plants. Michael McCain, Scott McCain, chief
Sharon Beals, Senior Vice-President, Food Safety & Quality Assurance, Maple Leaf Consumer Foods
food safety officer Randy Huffman and leaders from the manufacturing, quality and food safety teams across the organization are all in on this call. In the six months I have been with the organization, there have only been a handful of times that Michael had not actively participated, owing to other commitments. Q : What kind of investment has Maple Leaf made in order to achieve its goal of industry leadership in food safety?
A : Building a high-performing organization means training, training and more training—followed by validating the effectiveness of the time and money spent. Our physical plant improvements— including machinery, design and layout changes, personal gear, significant operating enhancements, etc.—represent an additional investment exceeding $20 million in 2009. In addition to the training and capital investments, some of the other significant items that support our strategy include our commitment to obtaining Alternative 2A or Alternative 2B status across all of our RTE facilities in the Consumer Foods and Fresh Prepared Foods businesses. This means either using an advanced process such as ultrahigh pasteurization, freezing, etc., or incorporation of listeria growth inhibitors like MoStatin and LactateDiacetate, to ensure that we only manufacture products that preclude the growth of Listeria over the course of the product’s shelf-life. And while sanitation is a given in any food plant, our new sanitation practices include deep-cleaning programs that essentially ‘peel back the layers of Continues on page 8
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ONE ON ONE PLAYING IT SAFE Continued from page 7
the onion’ to get into the inner workings of the machinery—not just merely address the top layer or contact surfaces. It may sound simple, but existing equipment design doesn’t always make this easy. We use the AMI Sanitation Checklist on all sensitive equipment to make sure we are reaching all areas where bacteria could potentially exist. We also utilize the test results from our EMP data, which included about 125,000 Listeria test swabs last year, to monitor the effectiveness of our sanitation and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) programs. Q: How well is the plant personnel responding to the intensified food safety focus at their operations?
A: We are fortunate in that we don’t have to convince our team of the importance of why we do what we do. That said, change must be supported through rigorous training and education. A key message of the training is to recognize that we are only as good as the weakest link: We must, and we do, look out for each other and empower every one of our employees to speak out if they have a food safety concern, or ideas to further improve our program. Q : What is Maple Leaf doing to reassure Canadian consumers about the safety and quality of its products?
A: We know that we have to earn the trust of consumers. While we fully accept the accountability for the listeriosis tragedy of 2008 that claimed the lives of 23 Canadians, that isn’t enough: We have to regain their trust. We are earning that trust is by living up to our promise to be a ‘global food safety leader,’ as evidenced through our actions. All consumers can follow our progress on the Food Safety section of our website (www.mapleleaffoods.com), and we have also engaged the use of social media to build an ongoing dialogue with consumers about food safety. We are also investing in consumer food safety education through part8 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
nerships with the Canadian Public Health Association, Ontario Science Teachers Association and Wellspring—the country’s largest cancer support organization. As a participant in the Global Food Safety Initiative, we have undertaken the implementation of BRC (British Retail Consortium) certification across our company. This global food safety standard is recognized by customers and consumers around the world as a best-in-class practice for food manufacturers, and we are now well on our way, with our U.K.-based bakery plants are all BRC-certified, as are two of our fresh bakeries. Several of our Consumer Foods and Fresh Prepared Foods plants are in the process of preparing for upcoming audits yet this year, with the balance of facilities to follow in 2011. Q : Please assess the importance of the role that packaging competence plays in the context of your company’s food safety compliance and performance.
A : Packaging is critical to food safety, as we rely on the integrity of the medium used to protect the product through warehousing, transportation and distribution to the consumer—making appropriate selection of the material, as well as its delivery system, absolutely critical. We rely heavily on our packaging suppliers to partner with us to assure consistent delivery of safe and quality food products to consumers. Q : Could you cite some recent packaging innovations that Maple Leaf has used to fulfill that objective?
A : The two most recent packaging innovations include the resealable bacon package and the resealable sliced meats package. Both of these new packages deliver complete product integrity to the consumer, while also providing the convenience of a built-in seal that won’t allow the package to leak in the fridge once it has been opened. (See picture) Q : Is using more sustainable packaging products and materials important?
A: Very important, and the ongoing
work we do in maximizing the cube utilization of our products is a good example of that. By changing the size and strength of some of our corrugated boxes, as well as the pallet configuration of our finished goods, we have significantly increased the number of cases per truck and, ultimately, reduced the number trucks on the road. Q : How does packaging sustainability tie in with your company’s food safety programs and initiatives?
A: As we continue to enhance our food safety programs, we will explore packaging solutions that not only deliver the safest possible food to our consumers, but do it in a way that strikes the right balance between product and packaging in an effort to minimize waste. Consumers can look to us for many upcoming packaging innovations that support convenience, sustainability and food safety assurance.
Q: What are some of the work being carried out by Maple Leaf to reduce the company’s environmental footprint?
A: Maple Leaf Foods has an excellent track record on environmental performance in such areas as wastewater treatment, odor control and waste reduction. Our Brandon (Manitoba) pork plant’s wastewater is among the cleanest in North America, and it was recently recognized as a Tier 3 plant under the American Meat Institute’s environmental management system program. Our large rendering facilities employ state-of-the-art biofilters for odor control to meet stringent community odor limits and expectations, while our landfill waste diversion rates are typically in the 93- to 95-percent range, which is outstanding for the meat industry. In addition, many of our larger, more energy-intensive plants have implemented heat recovery projects which have resulted in increased energy efficiency. Our new bakery, currently under construction in Hamilton, Ontario, will include several energy efficiency projects, and it is being designed specifically to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. We have also had an ongoing energy reduction program that has typically resulted in an average of three-percent energy reduction annually. CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
ONE ON ONE
FOOD CHAIN REACTION
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ny industry organization that has been around for over 90 years must be doing something, or rather lots of things, just right for its membership—especially in the context of a vitally important, $120-billiona-year economic sector providing employment for an estimated 428,000 Canadians from coast to coast. Founded in 1919, the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors (CCGD) owes its longevity in large part to being able to continually fulfill an ambitious, self-styled mission of “turning insights into actions” for the benefit of its member-companies in the Canadian grocery, foodservice and allied industries—continually developing and championing high standards, best practices and innovative business solutions for Canada’s secondlargest commercial sector. As part of that mandate, CCGD has recently teamed up with PAC - The Packaging Association to co-produce and co-host the upcoming Packaging Summit conference in Niagara-on-theLake, Ont., Sept 17-19, 2010, where prominent packaging and retail industry leaders from Canada and around the world will provide expert insights on the latest developments of new packaging products and solutions designed to lessen the industry’s environmental footprint, while optimizing food safety and quality for consumers. Having joined CCGD back in 1998, the group’s president and chief executive officer Nick Jennery is understandably proud of the tremendous group effort that went into organizing the highly-anticipated forum, recently sharing his expectations with the Canadian Packaging magazine. Q: What is the significance of the upcoming Packaging Summit for your organization’s member-companies and the Canadian grocery industry at large?
A: By bringing together industry leaders from across North America, the upcoming Packaging Summit represents a unique opportunity for trading partners to share best practices and engage in the development of collaborative solutions to address three of the key priority areas that drive CCGD and our members— 10 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
the environment, food safety, and supply chain efficiency. Q: What is the rationale behind the Council partnering with PAC for co-hosting this event?
towards more sustainable packaging must go hand-in-hand with the need to ensure the maintenance of product integrity and food safety. Finding that perfect balance, where packaging protects both the product and the environment, is a real big challenge, which we look forward to discussing in detail at the Packaging Summit.
A: PAC is a natural partner Nick Jennery, for CCGD to help Canadian President retailers roll out their environ- and CEO, mental plans and objectives, as CCGD PAC provides both the expertise and the forum for our members to meet with other supply chain partners Q: How well is the Canadian grocery in developing new packaging standards. industry faring in terms of reducing its Our common members also provide environmental footprint so far? continuity and strengthen the linkages A: The Canadian grocery sector has between our two associations. been following the lead of companies in Europe for some time, but we are now Q: What are your expectations of this at the stage of beginning to make sigevent in terms of its impact on your nificant strides in catching up to them. members and industry? The most significant change has been A: I expect this conference to be the industry becoming quite aligned the first in a series of strategic events behind sustainability issues and their targeted towards expanded trading importance to the sector’s future. Given partner collaboration. the high degree of alignment, I believe Packaging is a complicated subject. we are poised to make significant As companies shift to make their pack- progress to improve the sustainability aging more sustainable, food safety and of our industry over the next five years. product integrity have to be properly considered and addressed, so that we Q: What are some of the most pressing don’t end up solving one problem but challenges facing the Canadian grocery industry these days, and what is the seccreates two more in its wake. tor doing to address them?
Q: What are your member-companies doing in the meantime to address packaging sustainability?
A: Both the Council and membercompanies are actively engaged in the Global Packaging Project—an international initiative implemented under the auspices of the Consumer Goods Forum—which seeks to establish a common set of criteria for evaluating the sustainability of packaging. Through this initiative, our members will be better able to assess the sustainability of their packaging based on a more thorough life-cycle approach that accounts for all the environmental impacts of packaging—from production through transportation and, finally, recycling or disposal. Q: What is the link between packaging sustainability and food safety?
A: The industry’s effort to move
A: The greatest challenges and opportunities facing the grocery industry today lie within the four fundamental pillars of the environment, food safety, healthy living, and supply chain efficiency. From issues such as EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) to plastic shopping bags, CCGD members are heavily engaged in sustainability issues. Facing regulatory action and increasing stewardship fees in multiple jurisdictions, our members are taking important steps to make their operations more environmentally sustainable—both because it makes business sense and because it is the right thing to do. Naturally, food safety is always a top concern for grocers. Our members’ relationships with their customers are founded on a base of trust that the food they buy is safe. Hence our members take their commitment to food safety very seriously. CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
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MEMBERSHIP REWARDS Saluting PAC member-companies
Founded in 1920, Kraft Canada Inc. is the country’s leading manufacturer and marketer of packaged food products—having joined PAC – The Packaging Association as a founding member back in 1950 and remaining one of the group’s most active supporters since then. As president of the Toronto-based company Dino Bianco explains: “The PAC provides us with cutting-edge information and education on packaging innovation and industry trends. Representing the entire packaging supply chain, it provides us with valuable networking and collaboration opportunities, while also driving sustainable packaging innovation through its awards programs and its sponsorship of sustainable packaging competitions.” The new Sizzling Salads from Kraft are a chef-inspired line of entrée salad kits that consumers can make in four simple steps.
Founded in 1978 and headquartered in Markham, Ont., R-J Machinery Inc. supplies innovative, customizable filling equipment to a wide cross-section of industries. According to company president Ray Raamat, the company joined the PAC in 1980 because, “It’s a pipeline to our packaging industry, it is very adept at organizing valuable shows and events for its members and, importantly, does a stellar job of representing our industry’s interests to the regulatory agencies.” R-J’s model SED Servo Eccentric Drive fourpump piston filler with a motorized, bottom-up fill nozzle system.
newcomer to the PAC, having joined the association earlier this year. One of the world’s leading suppliers of flexible packaging products and pressure-sensitive materials used by leading food, consumer products, healthcare and other industries worldwide, the company boasts extensive technical base and expertise in polymer chemistry, film extrusion, coating, laminating, and package converting and printing.
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Montreal, WeighPack Systems Inc. is a leading Canadian manufacturer of packaging machinery, today also operating international branches in Las Vegas, Miami and Shanghai. In addition to growing its product line of high-performance automated bagging and form/fill/seal equipment, the company is currently expanding operations throughout Europe in its quest to become a WeighPack’s new SpinDexer truly global is a rotary starwheel indexing machine for high-speed filling of rigid containers.
Founded in 1858 and headquartered in Neenah, Wis., Bemis Company Inc. is a relative
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PROFILES MEMBERSHIP REWARDS Continued from page 12 enterprise. Having joined the PAC in 1995, the company says it is “proud to be part of a great association that always supports its members.”
Originally founded in 1834, the Guelph, Ont.-based Sleeman Breweries Ltd. today operates as a subsidiary of Japanese beer giant Sapporo Holdings, brewing premium beers like Sleeman, Sapporo, Old Milwaukee and many others. Joining PAC in 2007, Sleeman says it is proud to be a PAC member, citing the group’s Packaging Sustainability Leadership Awards competition and many other educational resources promoting sustainable packaging throughout Canada’s beer industry, as well as excellent networking opportunities for connecting with packaging suppliers and other vendors. Sleeman’s new advertising pokes fun at the president John Sleeman’s family’s colorful history.
Having joined PAC this year, the Laval, Que.-based Dyne-A-Pak Inc. has been a leading Canadian manufacturer of foam trays for fresh meat, produce and deli products for nearly 30 years, offering a range of innovative, eco-friendly products such as the Dyne-a-Pak Nature compostable foam trays—made from renewable plant fibers.
ment and more. “Our PAC membership keeps us in tune, informing us of current trends and activities in the packaging industry,” says company president Keith Preston. “It allows us to network and build important relationships with other industry players.” Samples of Samuel Strapping’s high-quality strapping.
The Dyna-A-Pak Nature compostable foam trays.
Nordson Canada Ltd., the Canadian subsidiary of Westlake, Ohio-based Nordson Corporation, is a leading supplier of adhesive dispensing equipment for the packaging, converting, consumer products, electronics and other industries, having joined the PAC in 1980. Says general manager Dave Petteplace: “Our PAC membership provides us with valuable insights into new trends, developments and regulations affecting the Canadian packaging market. The market resources, education, opportunities for col-
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Food industry can now serve Customers and the Environment with new
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In December 2009, Norampac became the largest company in the packaging industry to obtain the FSC Multi-Site Chain of Custody certification in North America. Rigorous tracking of the fibre throughout the manufacturing process of its products allows Norampac to guarantee that all raw materials come from environmentally responsible sources. By obtaining the FSC certification for all its box plants as well as its containerboard and boxboard mills, Norampac once again demonstrates its commitment to sustainable development.
PROFILES MEMBERSHIP REWARDS Continued from page S14 laboration, and a strong focus on focus on sustainability make PAC membership a must for any company serious about being a player in the Canadian packaging industry.”
them, through programs such as the PAC packaging competitions. Our PAC membership also opens up training opportunities through packaging and sustainability courses, and other educational resources.” The new packaging for Cadbury Adam’s Stride Gum designed by Glenn A. Davis.
The ProBlue Fill integrated adhesive melt-and-fill system from Nordson.
Founded in 1971, Glenn A. Davis & Associates, Ltd., has since evolved into three separate branding and package design businesses, including Davis, Bridgemark and b2 Retail Solutions, joining PAC in 1987. Says company chairman Ron Davis: “We really believe in the merits of a strong industry association like the PAC. We want to ensure we stay informed and aware of all the significant events in our industry, and we appreciate the networking opportunities and the chance to gain recognition for our clients, and the work we do for
Founded in 1786, Molson Coors Canada brews some of Canada’s most popular, bestselling beer brands such as Molson Canadian and Coors Light, Heineken, Corona, Miller Genuine Draft and Foster’s, having joined the PAC back in 1957. According to the company: “The PAC provides information and services like no other Canadian organization, including technical training for our new employees, unbiased industry representation on regulatory matters, exposure to new packaging technologies, safety and stewardship program support and training, and recognition for Canadian companies who are taking packaging to the next level.”
Founded in 1961, Ajax, Ont-based Britman Packaging Services is a packaging services provider specializing in the solid food products and personal-care sectors, offering cleanroom applications, POP displays, shrinkwrapping and flowwrapping, pallet-ready displays, labeling, blister-packaging, repackaging, cartoning, bagging, pouching, etc., having joined the PAC in 1996. Company president Farhat Buchh says he appreciates the networking opportunities and exposure to potential clients that PAC membership provides for his company.
Headquartered in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, Markem-Imaje Inc. is a globally-operating manufacturer of innovative product identification and traceability solutions for the food-and-beverage, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, wire and cable industries, having joined PAC in 1995. The model 5800 large-character inkjet printer features Markem-Imaje’s newgeneration Touch Dry Hot Melt technology.
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SUSTAINABILITY
CLEANING UP OUR ACT
Participants in the Canadian Packaging magazine’s Packaging Sustainability roundtable included: (sitting from left) Mario Bellizzi, Sobeys; Guy McGuffin, Walmart Canada; Catherine McVitty, Unilever Canada; Robert Appel, Canpaco, (standing from left) Bob Hagan, Atlantic Packaging Products; John Challinor, Nestlé Waters Canada; Jas Singh, Rogers Connect Research; Andrew Joseph, Features Editor, Canadian Packaging; Eldon Fink, Sun Chemical; Stephen Dean, Publisher, Canadian Packaging; George Guidoni, Editor, Canadian Packaging; Richard McCoy, Sun Chemical.
Keeping environmental sustainability at the forefront of consumer awareness a tricky balancing act for leading brand-owners, retailers and packaging industry insiders BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE
I
f people really are the product of their environment, then Canadian society clearly has a lot of hard work ahead before it can claim any sort of high global moral ground as a responsible steward of natural resources and a shining beacon of environmental leadership and sustainability. Which is not to say that it can’t achieve those lofty heights—being blessed with a wealth of technological and human resources to make a profound difference in the noble cause of reversing man-made global ecological
FALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
degradation—but it will require a far more sweeping, thoughtful, concerted and collective effort by more of Canada’s key CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry stakeholders to make Canadian consumers willing and proactive participants in the ongoing drive to reduce the sector’s vastly oversized environmental footprint. In fact, it would be a tragic waste of promise and potential if the opportunity for Canadian brand-owners, retailers and packaging manufacturers to build on the early achievements in packaging and manufacturing sustainability to go begging on the account of waning consumer enthusiasm and commitment
brought about by a traumatizing economic recession and high-pitched anxiety over near-term economic prospects, according to the general consensus of an authoritative panel of senior industry executives taking part in last month’s Packaging Sustainability roundtable discussion of the Canadian Packaging magazine of Rogers Publishing Limited in Toronto. Offering their unique takes and insights on the progress made by their respective industry sectors to date— including retailing, manufacturing and packaging—the roundtable panelists Continues on page 22
WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 19
Our Approach to Sustainability: Helping Customers be Profitable and Environmentally Responsible at the Same Time Sun Chemical is committed to sustainability and has been for years. After all, we consider it our responsibility to raise awareness about environmental issues that are part of our industry, including regulatory and consumer-driven forces. Not only that, we want to provide our customers with eco-efficiency, and in turn, enhance the sustainability of their processes and end products. While the recent economic downturn has taken its toll in our industry, it has also brought opportunity. If anything, these economic times have actually highlighted the importance of sustainability. Our research shows CPGs view sustainability as a way of lowering their impact on the environment while providing them with cost savings opportunities through such things as reducing or light-weighting packaging, and conserving energy and material resources. Our approach to sustainability is from an eco-efficiency perspective. As such, we develop data-driven methodologies to assess our impact and to innovate processes and products that are more sustainable simultaneously from an economic and environmental dimension. It’s about making our customers profitable and environmentally responsible at the same time. We recently completed a “gate-to-gate” carbon footprint assessment using our SunCare™ Environmental Services partner, ENVIRON, and from that assessment, we identified high impact improvement areas that enhance operation efficiency and applied them to specific initiatives that would lower our carbon footprint and impact on the environment not only in Canada, but globally. One of the objectives of the assessment was to have the input data necessary for our customers to understand the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of the products they are using. We are similarly looking at our supplier base to provide us with input so we can move beyond our “gate-to-gate” carbon footprint to a “supplier gate to our customer gate” carbon footprint. Sun Chemical’s sustainability policy is different from other company policies and positioning because it is supported by data. We issued our Sustainability Report 2009, a first of its kind report, using data collected since 2005 from approximately 170 Sun Chemical sites in over 25 countries. The key sustainability metrics measured in the data include: energy consumption/conservation at production and non-production sites, the energy carbon footprint at the production sites, process waste reduction, water consumption, materials safety, and employee safety. To read the full report, visit: www. sunchemical.com/company/sustainability. “Working for you” means making our customers profitable and environmentally responsible at the same time. Those who are interested in working toward that goal can start by calculating their initial carbon footprint for their facility operations at: www.sunchemical.com/suncare.
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SUSTAINABILITY CLEANING UP OUR ACT Continued from page 19
also reviewed results from the exclusive industry survey commissioned by the magazine, and carried out by the Rogers Connect Research (see pages 30-34), to determine the true level of green commitment amongst senior management ranks at Canadian-based packaging and retail enterprises. On both counts, the panelists gave a surprisingly uniform overall assessment of Canada’s progress on carbon footprint reduction in general, and packaging sustainability specifically, as being distinctly average at best, and urgently in need of revitalization through further innovation and better decision-making at the regulatory and legislative levels. “I think that one of the bigger challenges that our companies have is the mishmash of recycling criteria across the country—not just within the provinces but right across the country,” stated Mario Bellizzi, senior director of environment and sustainability at Canada’s second-largest food retailer Sobeys Inc. “What is acceptable in the recycling stream in one municipality may not be acceptable in the municipality next door, and certainly may not be acceptable in another province.
“It makes it difficult in terms of getting something cohesive that you can work with to focus on making more of your materials recyclable in the municipal wastestreams—a real challenge for the industry to meet everybody’s recycling criteria.” This lack of common guidance and direction has also manifested itself in the proliferation of different competing environmental certification standards and authorities that stymies the packaging industry’s efforts to act in unison on packaging sustainability, added Bob Hagan, senior vice-president of sales for the Packaging Group business of corrugated packaging producer Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. in Toronto. “There are many different forestry certifications out there, with many not recognizing the other ones as having any real value,” Hagan pointed out. “You would think there is a certain altruism at play insofar as we should all be moving to the same goal, but there are instead all these little fiefdoms looking at each other as competitors, as opposed to trying to move the ball forward.” Added Catherine McVitty, manager of environmental and corporate affairs for consumer products powerhouse Unilever Canada in Toronto: “We need a more harmonized approach to
“Corporations are starting to understand that there is some value in paying a little extra initially to set progressive programs into place, and that accepting such responsibility does reward everyone over the long run.” — Robert Appel, President, Canpaco
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standardization for the sake of consumer education as well. “If consumers don’t know if the certification program is legitimate or are not familiar with it, then it’s not going to motivate them to purchase a certain product,” said McVitty. “We (Unilever) ourselves use different certifications programs in our sourcing process—marine stewardship, rainforest alliance, fair trade and so on—so the consumer may well be confused about what true environmental certification really is. “If we’re going to put a forest stewardship logo on a package, it really has to mean something.” While many Canadian brandowners and packaging suppliers have embraced the highly-touted, five-yearold Packaging Scorecard metrics system for packaging sustainability developed by retailing colossus Walmart Stores Inc. as a de facto industry blueprint for better packaging sustainability performance, Walmart Canada Corp. vice-president of replenishment Guy McGuffin said the realities of an increasingly global economy dictate a need for an even more international approach to promoting packaging sustainability—pointing to the ongoing Global Packaging Project work carried out by the Paris-based group The Consumer Goods Forum, a joint effort by the world’s leading retailers, CPG manufacturers and industry associations to develop globally-recognized metrics and definitions for developing more sustainable packaging worldwide. “The big problem we have today in Canada is the lack of harmonization from municipality to municipality and from province to province, so what we’ve been trying to do with the Packaging Scorecard is to develop a standard that we can use to measure different products and packages across the industry,” said McGuffin, citing Walmart’s active participation in the Global Packaging Project development. “The project participants agreed to take a look at existing indicators out there today, review what the SPC (Sustainable Packaging Coalition) had done with its sustainable packaging criteria, and developed a global standard of what they wanted to measure in regards to sustainable packaging and how they were going to measCANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
SUSTAINABILITY ure it,” McGuffin related. “Now they have listed a number of different pilot projects from different multinational companies around the world to take a look at validating those metrics—to see if they stand up. “These projects will be wrapping up around the third quarter of this year … and to me it’s a very exciting development,” stated McGuffin, adding that Walmart Canada is still moving forward with its own inhouse efforts to expand and enhance the scope of its Packaging Scorecard system, originally designed as a tool for getting the retailer’s suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging they ship to Walmart stores by five per cent by 2013. “We are taking that one step further beyond the Scorecard in developing some kind of a national program,” he said, “with a view of helping make it more a of a globally-recognized standard. “If we can do that, it’s going to make it much easier for manufacturers to develop more sustainable products by working with a consistent standard, as opposed to multiple standards across different municipalities and countries.” Added Bellizzi: “I encourage the retail industry to see what it can take from the outcome of the Global Packaging Project and implement it within the retail industry, which would greatly simplify the process for us and the vendors that supply us. “It clearly has to be a win-win situation for both parties: if it’s not, it’s not going to happen,” said Bellizzi, stressing the need for greater international harmonization in the setting of sustainability objectives and the tools for achieving them. “Retailers buy locally, nationally and globally, and manufacturers sell locally, nationally and globally, [and] with Canada being a relatively small market, it is important to be looking at this from an international perspective. “The Global Packaging Project is a good first step in terms of giving us some definitions, and we need to move forward in really bringing those definitions to life,” he stated. “Any kind of a standard we can all work towards would be an excellent development,” concurred Hagan, “and I hope that this project will clear up some of the confusion out there by setting down some standards and colFALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
lecting the correct data that packaging suppliers can really use, which is the key to the whole thing succeeding. “Working with insufficient data and working for different reasons makes for a very confusing environment for all stakeholders, so we really need for this to all come together sooner rather than later.” For John Challinor, director of corporate affairs at Nestlé Waters Canada (NWC) in Guelph, Ont., the lack of government leadership on environmental issues—combined with high-profile fiascoes such as the collection of ecofees on hundreds of household cleaning products in Ontario this past summer— seriously undermines its credibility in the eyes of the consumer public to the point of general indifference to sustainable packaging efforts at large. “Governments have a responsibility to make consumers aware why they require certain regulations to be implemented, which is to better serve the health of the consumers and the society at large, or else they are just creating more red tape. Unfortunately, that’s not happening very often today,” Challinor lamented. “We should not be too skeptical about recycling in Canada, because a lot of packaging actually does get recycled, but there is still a sufficient level of skep-
ticism amongst the public about what the industry and government are doing that certain demographic segments of the population don’t recycle because they just don’t believe that the material is being recycled,” Challinor expanded. “Government has a responsibility to help the message out through education, which involves understanding the importance of recycling, the importance of not littering, what actually happens in the recycling stream, that plastic is a recyclable and valuable commodity—just like glass, paper and aluminum,” he added. “Ultimately, it goes back to education [and] the responsibility to help the consumers to understand the benefit,” Challinor said. “To use an example, the Province of Ontario once had the best anti-littering campaign in North America in the 1960s and early 1970s, when most were absolutely ashamed to drop something out of their car or along the street—it was just antisocial behavior. “But as the fiscal imperatives changed at the provincial level, the advertising was stopped and we have seen a societal change accordingly—the province is dirtier today than it was 25 years ago.” Having recently developed a Continues on page 24
“Any kind of a standard we can all work towards would be an excellent development. Working with insufficient data and working for different reasons makes for a very confusing environment for all stakeholders.” — Bob Hagan, Senior V-P, Sales, Packaging Group, Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd.
WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 23
SUSTAINABILITY CLEANING UP OUR ACT Continued from page 23
100-percent recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottle for the company’s Montclair brand of natural spring water, Challinor noted, NWC found itself unable to use the new container to package its bigger brands, such as its f lagship PureLife label, “because we just can’t get enough high-grade recycled PET to use on a major brand.” But for all the government shortcomings in respect to environmental legislation, Challinor stressed that ultimately it is the CPG industry’s responsibility to educate consumers on the value of making eco-friendlier purchasing choices. Said Challinor: “The fact of the matter is that the best model for the future is industry-led stewardship, and there are examples of good industry stewardship in almost every province today. “As taxpayers, none of us can afford to have government take over the responsibility for waste management, recycling or environmental sustainability of our packaging—it has to be an industry-led effort to work effectively.” While the last couple of years have been “very difficult for the Canadian beverage industry,” according to Challinor,
they were an especially testing time for the Canadian manufacturers and distributors of packaging products expected to flood the market with a broad array of innovative, eco-friendly packaging solutions—just as most of their CPG customers were implementing sweeping cost cuts in all operations to ride out a nasty economic downturn whose aftershocks are still reverberating across many economic sectors. Packaging suppliers are heavily pressured by their customers, consumers and legislators alike to come up with breakthrough products to reduce the product footprint across the supply chain, but often find end-users unwilling to share the startup costs and burden involved in commercializing those products, according to Robert Appel, president of Woodbridge, Ont.based packaging supplier Canpaco. “It’s a real chicken-and-egg dilemma for us,” said Appel, citing the relatively lukewarm response so far to the company’s recently-launched OXOBiodegradable range of compostable stretchwrap film engineered to completely biodegrade into water and biomass after being exposed to direct sunlight after use. “There is always a slight initial cost premium for any newly-developed product before we can build up the
“We have a massive challenge in terms of changing consumer behavior when they use our products. The truth is that meaningful carbon-footprint reduction is often beyond the control of our manufacturing facilities and our packaging.” — Catherine McVitty, Manager, Environmental & Corporate Affairs, Unilever Canada
24 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
manufacturing capacity and marketshare to reduce the price, but how do you develop the product if you’re not going to be able to get a premium that will eventually enable you to drop the price and make an economically viable, eco-friendly alternative? “It is a challenge for us to encourage our customer base to take some sort of responsibility by paying a marginal premium in order to keep sustainability moving forward,” he said, albeit adding that more of Canpaco’s prospective customers are starting to warm up to the company’s sustainable packaging innovations. “Corporations are starting to become more ethically responsible today, and they are starting to understand that there is some value in paying a little extra initially to set progressive programs into place, and that accepting such responsibility does reward everyone over the long run.” But the lack of common municipal waste diversion standards and infrastructure between different jurisdictions is still a major concern, Appel pointed out, noting that many recycling operators simply refuse to accept any biodegradable plastic products out-of-hand for fears of contaminating Continues on page 26
“Governments have a responsibility to make consumers aware why there require certain regulations to be implemented, or else they are just creating more red tape. Unfortunately, that’s not happening very often today.” — John Challinor, Director of Corporate Affairs, Nestlé Waters Canada
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their wastestreams, despite significant technical advances that should allay such fears. “There are just too many definitions out there on what constitutes a ‘biodegradeable’ or ‘compostable’ product,” he lamented. “It’s one thing for us to say that we’re all for sustainability and being green, but there has to be some definition to it, or else it becomes like advocating world peace and stopping hunger. “It’s an ideal goal, but we need concrete steps and definitions put in place that we can agree on, that our customer base can agree on, and that governments can agree on, so that we can make a clear path towards reaching an ultimate objective.” Eldon Fink, director of environmental health and safety at the leading package printing inks and additives manufacturer Sun Chemical Corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio, concurred. “Sustainability means so many things to so many different people that it makes it confusing and difficult to really wrap our heads around it,” Fink stated. “If we could get to a logical understanding of the problem, I think it would spur a lot of additional effort that would be aligned towards reaching a common goal. “I personally think Canada is sitting on a real opportunity here, but only if the small businesses in Canada present a uniform and understandable program for the senior power brokers to understand and put some horsepower behind. “It is important sometimes to tap into the smaller companies: they have the ability to put effort into R&D and other objectives without having to provide the same level of economic justification that a publicly-owned company might have to, with executives being so obsessed with quarterly results and things like that. “There is an opportunity for innovation for small businesses in sustainability, hence an important opportunity for Canada.” Unfortunately, that opportunity is often ignored or dismissed due to financial constraints, noted Challinor. “We are an undercapitalized industry in Canada. It’s hard to raise capital 26 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
if you are a private company or a small/ medium-sized business, which really impacts the ability of a company to move forward on sustainability when faced with the issue of premiums, payback, return-on-investment and so on,” he said. “Canada is generally weak when it comes to capitalization and access to capital: it’s a pre-recession issue, it’s a chronic issue, and I really don’t know what the answer is,” noted Challinor. “It just seems a lot easier to get capital to innovate in the U.S.” But McGuffin, a key figure behind Walmart Canada’s unwavering push to get its entire supplier base to come up to speed on the retailer’s Packaging Scorecard system implementation targets and deadlines, countered that capital resources are only one part of the puzzle, albeit an important part. Said McGuffin: “We recently did a confidential survey to take a look at how manufacturing companies were going about achieving greater sustainability, and there is a challenge in a sense that some small companies may feel they don’t have the resources. “But I also found many examples of companies that have grasped its importance and gone after it regardless of their size to do some tremendous work,” he related. “We always try to
use those examples at Walmart, wherever we find them, to try to encourage other small companies to get engaged and not be deterred by the fact that they think they may not have sufficient resources—there are always things they can do. “Regardless of how large or small a company you are, when you start looking at making the right choices for the environment and seeing that it is good for your bottom line and reducing costs, you will really get a lot more traction,” he expanded. “One small company we surveyed switched from trucking products on the roads to rail transport, realizing significant savings in transportation costs while doing the right thing for the environment. “Big or small, when you actually start to see cost-savings achieved by making positive choices for the environment, there is naturally a big incentive to pursue it further as a corporate objective.” Added Appel: “I have to commend retailers for bringing the issue of ‘manufacturing complacency’ to the forefront by motivating and encouraging their vendor base to start thinking differently, which is where it all starts. “Once they start thinking differently, they start to ask questions, they become more informed, and they begin to learn and to search out new
“I personally think that Canada is sitting on a real opportunity here, but only if the small businesses in Canada present a uniform and understandable program for the senior power brokers to understand and put some horsepower behind.” — Eldon Fink, Director, Environmental Health & Safety, Sun Chemical Corporation
CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
SUSTAINABILITY ways to become better corporate citizens,” Appel reasoned. “But while manufacturers have to take responsibility in understanding the goals and objectives of their customers, they would be better at getting concrete results if there was a standardized blueprint for them to follow, which would dispel a lot of nebulous definitions f loating out there. “A more educated manufacturer is a better manufacturer, and once that’s done, we’ll start to see some real tangible results.” Appel added: “I think it is critical to have retailers involved, because sustainability is a team sport. When you have the large retailers moving sustainability agenda down the supply chain, it provides an opportunity for teamwork to bring all the different pieces of the puzzle together ... and bring about required changes to the traditional business models.” While each of the panelists agreed that the recent economic downturn was fairly detrimental to advancing the cause of packaging and manufacturing sustainability in Canada over the past two years—especially in light of deeply-shaken consumer confidence and sharply-curtailed purchasing power—they also said that they were generally pleased with the depth
“Regardless how large or small a company you are, when you start making the right choices for the environment and seeing that it is good for your bottom line and reducing costs, you will really get a lot more traction.” — Guy McGuffin, V-P, Replenishment, Walmart Canada Corp.
of commitment to the sustainability agenda displayed by their respective organizations during the downturn. Said McVitty: “For Unilever, sustainability is a key part of a business growth strategy regardless of economic downturns. “Our company can’t grow as a business if we don’t have access to the world’s natural resources, and if climate change is going to result in desertification of agricultural lands, we won’t have the lands we need to produce the agricultural raw materials that we need to make our products,” she explained. “Investing in sustainable agriculture practices is not really dependent on a robust economy. It’s what we need to do in order to grow our business, and the economic downturn didn’t impact the speed at which we are trying to address that,” McVitty stated, citing Unilever’s recently-unveiled Compass Vision strategic initiative that, among other things, targets the use of only sustainable paper packaging—either 100-percent recycled content or sourced from sustainable certified forestlands—for Unilever products worldwide by 2020, reaching the 75-percent threshold by 2015. “Unilever has set a vision for ourselves to double the size of our company without increasing our environmental footprint by looking primarily at
packaging and waste, our water use, CO2 emissions, and our agricultural sourcing,” McVitty revealed. “Those are the primary areas where we can have an environmental impact, and we need to implement big, long-term initiatives in all those categories in order to reach that vision. “We have an R&D center in the U.K. that has mapped out what projects need to take place over the next 10 to 15 years in order to meet those goals. “It’s a lot of research, a lot of technological changes driven by R&D, and it will extend right through the supply chain: from sourcing right through to packaging, to transportation, and on to consumer use,” she stated. According to NWC’s Challinor, “If sustainability made good business sense before we entered into a recession, then it makes good business sense to continue to do it, because essentially you are talking about efficiency and reducing the amount of packaging that you purchase and use in your product. “In fact, we became certified to the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management during the recession,” he pointed out, “because it was the right thing to do.” Added Challinor: “Our new 100-percent recycled plastic bottle wasn’t created overnight: the work on that began during very difficult times in this country and, by the way, we are still in difficult times, at least in the beverage industry. “But there are many examples of breakthrough innovation in sustainable packaging in the beverage industry, like this bottle and the PlantBottle from Coca-Cola launched at the Olympics, which took place during the recession—it’s all about doing the right thing from an environmental perspective.” Added Bellizzi: “A lot of the sustainability initiatives are all about waste reduction and increased efficiency ... to obtain a competitive advantage over the producer next door, so it makes good business sense. “I think retailers have recognized that and have continued through the recession to implement initiatives that are going to reduce the environmental footprint. If anything, this has intensified over the last couple of years rather Continues on page 28
FALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 27
SUSTAINABILITY CLEANING UP OUR ACT Continued from page 27
than subsided,” argued Bellizzi. But for all the corporate-level commitment to sustainability, all speakers agreed that it is ultimately the consumers who will decide how far packaging and environmental sustainability advance in Canada in the coming years. The problem is, they also acknowledged, the average Canadian consumer appears to be neither as deeply committed to fulfilling its part of the bargain as previously thought—based on most current purchasing trends— nor as well-informed and educated in all the different aspects and nuances of environmental sustainability to be able to make a sound environmental purchasing judgement call even if the commitment was there. Overcoming this educational deficit is arguably the most puzzling riddle to resolve, according to some of the roundtable panelists, but it’s an absolute prerequisite for laying strong foundations to create any sort of a ‘green economy’ worthy of the name. For one thing, some panelists pointed out, product packaging often accounts for a far lesser part of the product’s overall environmental footprint—as measured via a comprehensive LCA (life-cycle analysis) assessment—than other key variables involved in the manufacture of that product and its delivery to market, including energy use, water consumption, etc. “I think that consumer use of our products is probably our biggest challenge,” stated McVitty. “The biggest carbon footprint contributor for making a cup of tea, for example, is actually boiling the kettle at home: not the manufacturing or the transportation. “But how do you communicate to the consumer, ‘Just fill your kettle with as much water as you actually need to fill a tea-cup’? Said McVitty: “For our home-care or personal-care products, our biggest footprint is the consumer’s use of the product—like the heating of the water or showering—so we have a massive challenge in terms of changing consumer behavior when they use our products. How do yo tell them to take a shorter shower? “For our food products, our biggest 28 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
carbon impact is in the sourcing of the raw agricultural products and materials, but consumers don’t often come to Unilever to complain about our agricultural practices. They will, however, complain about certain items if they have a difficulty with disposing of their packaging in some way. “In our entire footprint analysis, packaging is a component, but it’s not as big as sourcing and the consumer use,” McVitty stated. “We do focus on packaging—that’s what the consumers see, that’s what they have to deal with when they take it home, and that’s what we get most of our consumer complaints about at the end of the day. “But the truth is that meaningful carbon-footprint reduction is often beyond the control of our manufacturing facilities and our packaging.” Added McGuffin: “All the research that we do at Walmart indicates that the environment is something that consumers are definitely passionate and concerned about, but there is an educational factor involved in helping them make the right choices. “We are also finding that given the choice and with all things being equal, consumers are willing to make the sustainable choice at our stores—but they are not willing to pay more for it,” McGuffin related.
“I think the challenge for us it to continue making those products accessible to customers, and if we price them competitively with products that are less environmentally-friendly, they’ll generally make the right choice,” he said. “I also think that consumers are moving in the right direction,” concurred Bellizzi. “Not at the same pace as in Europe, but we just don’t have the same infrastructure to support recycling that they do, being a far larger country with more distances to cover between our markets. “But I do see a shift: all I have to do is look out my front window in the mornings. Where there used to be three bags of garbage out by the curb, there is now one or maybe two bags, along with three Blue Boxes and a Green Bin,” Bellizzi ref lected. “I think consumers are willing to make a shift, but it is important for manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to make it easy for the consumer to integrate sustainability into the products that we make available to them, and making it cost-competitive so that they can make the right choice. “Unless we’re able to do that, they will talk with their dollars and simply choose something that is more affordable, whatever the environmental burden.”
“I think consumers are willing to make a shift, but it is important for manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to make it easy for consumers to integrate sustainability into the products that we make available to them, and make it cost-competitive so they can make the right choice.”
“There has to be some accountability with the media. Most consumers take their recyclables to the curb and assume they have done their part for the environment, but the media has a responsibility to provide the next step of education on environmental issues.”
— Mario Bellizzi Senior Director, Environment and Sustainability, Sobeys Inc.
— Richard McCoy, Account Executive, Sun Chemical Ltd.
CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
SUSTAINABILITY
MEASURED RESPONSE The Canadian Packaging magazine has recently commissioned a comprehensive industry survey designed to assess the importance of packaging sustainability among Canada’s packaging end-users in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) sector and their customers in the Canadian retail industry.
The following few pages provide a statistical overview of some of the key findings of this two-part survey, carried out over the past summer by the Rogers Connect Research department of the Business and Professional Publishing Group division of Rogers Publishing Limited.
PACKAGERS How concerned are you about the cost of packaging sustainability efforts?
How concerned are you about different definitions of what packaging sustainability means?
How concerned are you about taking direction from retailers on packaging requirements to meet their sustainability goals?
It is more difficult to be sustainable during an economic downturn.
Very concerned (37%)
Very concerned (26%)
Very concerned (31%)
Strongly agree (8%)
Somewhat concerned (47%)
Somewhat concerned (57%)
Somewhat concerned (52%)
Somewhat agree (39%)
Not very concerned (12%)
Not very concerned (14%)
Not very concerned (12%)
Neither agree or disagree (21%)
Not at all concerned (1%)
Not at all concerned (0%)
Not at all concerned (3%)
Somewhat disagree (21%) Strongly disagree (7%)
In my experience, consumer packaged goods companies are supplying more eco-friendly products and packaging.
I would say that I have a high level of familiarity with today’s sustainability issues.
Packaging sustainability is an overall corporate goal for my company.
Strongly agree (15%)
Strongly agree (16%)
Strongly agree (30%)
Somewhat agree (38%)
Somewhat agree (45%)
Somewhat agree (41%)
Neither agree or disagree (29%)
Neither agree or disagree (23%)
Neither agree or disagree (18%)
Somewhat disagree (12%)
Somewhat disagree (11%)
Somewhat disagree (8%)
Strongly disagree (2%)
Strongly disagree (2%)
Strongly disagree (1%)
30 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
SUSTAINABILITY
Ranking factors from the most to least important why your organization is pursuing a Packaging Sustainability Program?
What guidelines do you have, or plan to incorporate in your sustainability program? Recyled content specifications
It’s just the right thing to do
43%
18%
14%
21%
Energy consumption
It’s a marketing opportunity
17%
35%
23%
19%
Transportation practices
Customer mandated
25%
23%
29%
16%
Measurable sustainability goals
It’s a profit opportunity
12%
20%
27%
32%
Rank #1
Rank #2
Rank #3
Design guidelines Ban on specific materials
Rank #4
Water usage in the manufacturing process Limits on specific materials Hiring practices Other No specified guidelines included 0%
These days, not being sustainable is a risk to an organization’s corporate brand and reputation.
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Have you tied your sustainability program or efforts to any of the following programs? Quality improvement
Lean manufacturing
Plant safety
Retail ready packaging
Food safety (all packagers)
Strongly agree (25%) Somewhat agree (51%) 100%
Food safety (food & beverage packagers only) 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Neither agree or disagree (17%) Somewhat disagree (4%)
80%
Strongly disagree (1%)
60%
Retailers may want us to have packaging sustainability, but they will still 40% go with whoever has the lowest price.
Packagers are doing a great job at meeting retailers sustainability needs.
Over the last 12 months, how much has the number of products whose packaging makes ‘green’ claims increased at your organization?
Retailers have made it clear to me what they want in sustainable packaging.
20% 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0%
Strongly agree (43%)
Strongly agree (8%)
Strongly agree (11%)
Somewhat agree (38%)
Somewhat agree (37%)
Somewhat agree (28%)
Somewhat increased (56%)
Neither agree or disagree (11%)
Neither agree or disagree (36%)
Neither agree or disagree (38%)
Remained the same (28%)
Somewhat disagree (4%)
Somewhat disagree (12%)
Somewhat disagree (13%)
Somewhat decreased (0%)
Strongly disagree (1%)
Strongly disagree (5%)
Strongly disagree (7%)
Greatly decreased (3%)
0
FALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
Greatly increased (14%)
10
20
30
40
50
WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 31
SUSTAINABILITY
RETAILERS Too many consumer goods companies make false or unproven claims on their packaging.
Has your organization communicated your sustainability program/policy to your vendors?
Packaging sustainability is an overall corporate goal for my company.
How important is designing for recycling?
Strongly agree (17%)
Yes - Formally (21%)
Strongly agree (29%)
Very important (53%)
Somewhat agree (39%)
Yes - Informally (36%)
Somewhat agree (36%)
Somewhat important (38%)
Neither agree or disagree (35%)
No (23%)
Neither agree or disagree (30%)
Somewhat disagree (7%)
Not too sure (21%)
Somewhat disagree (5%)
Neither important or unimportant (4%)
Strongly disagree (0%)
Strongly disagree (0%)
Somewhat unimportant (1%) Not important at all (1%) Don’t know (2%)
It’s more difficult to be sustainable during an economic downturn.
How important is energy consumption in manufacturing?
I would say that I have a high level of familiarity with today’s sustainability issues.
How important is a unified/ global ‘green’ rating system?
Strongly agree (9%)
Very important (41%)
Strongly agree (19%)
Very important (32%)
Somewhat agree (44%)
Somewhat important (38%)
Somewhat agree (53%)
Somewhat important (36%)
Neither agree or disagree (22%)
Neither important or unimportant (13%)
Neither agree or disagree (29%)
Neither important or unimportant (15%)
Somewhat disagree (19%) Strongly disagree (6%)
Somewhat unimportant (2%) Not important at all (1%)
Somewhat disagree (4%) Strongly disagree (1%)
Somewhat unimportant (8%) Not important at all (1%)
Don’t know (3%)
32 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
SUSTAINABILITY
How important is life-cycle analysis for the products you carry?
How important is sustainability to your overall sales and marketing strategy?
How important is material consumption in manufacturing?
Packagers are doing a great job at meeting our sustainability needs.
Very important (21%)
Very important (37%)
Very important (34%)
Strongly agree (5%)
Somewhat important (39%)
Somewhat important (34%)
Somewhat important (48%)
Somewhat agree (35%)
Neither important or unimportant (21%)
Neither important or unimportant (13%)
Neither important or unimportant (11%)
Neither agree or disagree (31%)
Somewhat unimportant (9%)
Somewhat unimportant (5%)
Somewhat unimportant (2%)
Not important at all (3%)
Not important at all (4%)
Not important at all (1%)
Somewhat disagree (23%) Strongly disagree (7%)
Don’t know (2%)
Which of the following levels best describes your organization’s present sustainability policy?
What guidelines do you have, or plan to incorporate, in your sustainability program?
How important is recycled content?
Recyled content specifications Energy consumption Transportation practices Measurable sustainability goals Design guidelines Ban on specific materials Water usage in the manufacturing process Limits on specific materials Hiring practices Other No specified guidelines included 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
We have a formal policy (24%)
Very important (50%)
We have an informal policy (27%)
Somewhat important (37%)
Our policy is presently being developed (14%)
Neither important or unimportant (8%)
We do not have a policy in place, but I forsee having one started in the next 12 months (19%)
Somewhat unimportant (1%)
We do not have a policy in place, nor do I forsee having one started in the next 12 months (14%)
FALL 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING
Not important at all (1%) Don’t know (2%)
WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 33
SUSTAINABILITY
How important is waste reduction?
These days, not being sustainable is a risk to our corporate brand and reputation.
How important is having a vendor scorecard which rates suppliers on their sustainability competence?
Very important (55%)
Strongly agree (26%)
Very important (14%)
Somewhat important (33%)
Somewhat agree (49%)
Somewhat important (40%)
Neither important or unimportant (5%)
Neither agree or disagree (18%)
Neither important or unimportant (25%)
Somewhat unimportant (2%) Not important at all (1%)
Somewhat disagree (6%) Strongly disagree (1%)
Somewhat unimportant (9%) Not important at all (6%)
Don’t know (2%)
When presented with two similar products at the same pricing, I feel consumers will choose the ones they feel are more environmentally-friendly.
How important is landfill waste diversion to your company?
How important is water consumption in manufacturing?
Strongly agree (30%)
Very important (56%)
Very important (32%)
Somewhat agree (48%)
Somewhat important (30%)
Somewhat important (43%)
Neither agree or disagree (15%)
Neither important or unimportant (7%)
Neither important or unimportant (16%)
Somewhat unimportant (2%)
Somewhat unimportant (2%)
Not important at all (1%)
Not important at all (1%)
Don’t know (3%)
Don’t know (3%)
Somewhat disagree (7%) Strongly disagree (1%)
34 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM
CANADIAN PACKAGING • FALL 2010
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