VOLUME 14.1 – 2019
#UNBOXINGEUROPE: CORRUGATED CUSTOMISATION A UNIQUE DIGITAL PRINT COLLABORATION WITH HP AND LIC
PCR • E-COMMERCE • NEW YEAR’S PREDICTIONS
Head of Content Tim Sykes
Editors
Head of Commercial Operations Jesse Roberts
Elisabeth Skoda Libby White
Head of Sales
Head of Studio
Senior Sales Executive
Gareth Harrey
Dominic Kurkowski
Production Manager
Sales Executive
Paul Holden-Abbott
Alain Rizk
Kevin Gambrill
Advertising Coordinator IT Support Kayleigh Harvey
Syed Hassan
Executive Assistant
Audience Development Executive
Amber Dawson
VOLUME 14.1 – 2019
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Andrew Wood
Packaging Europe Ltd Part of the Rapid News Communications Group Alkmaar House, Alkmaar Way, Norwich, Norfolk, NR6 6BF, UK Registered Office: Carlton House, Sandpiper Way, Chester Business Park, Chester, CH4 9QE. Company No: 10531302. Registered in England. VAT Registration No. GB 265 4148 96 Telephone: +44 (0)1603 885000 Editorial: editor@packagingeurope.com Studio: production@packagingeurope.com Advertising: jr@packagingeurope.com, kg@packagingeurope.com Website: packagingeurope.com Facebook: facebook.com/PackagingEurope Twitter: twitter.com/PackagingEurope LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/packaging-europe YouTube: youtube.com/PackagingEurope © Packaging Europe Ltd 2019 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form for any purpose, other than short sections for the purpose of review, without prior consent of the publisher. ISSN 2516-0133 (Print) ISSN 02516-0141 (Online)
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Editorial Tim Sykes #unboxingEurope The digital transformation of corrugated Secondary raw materials The challenge of using more PCR Polyolefins PCEP’s new chairman David Baker New Plastics Economy Sander Defruyt on the Global Commitment Innovation Spotlight Rieke’s prep-free, leak-free R&D Turning the Tide The Eco-Box e-commerce rethink 2019 Predictions Our writers on this year’s big food & bev trends Smart Pharma The potential of packaging as a communication tool EU FMD The outlook on deadline day Coatings Virginia Tech’s research into super slippery surfaces Barrier Papers Mitsubishi on the potential to supplant plastics Glass What’s new in the classic material Innovation Spotlight Smurfit’s Better Planet Packaging Design Challenge LogiMAT 2019 Glimpsing the future of intralogistics Corona Beer brand launches bio-based aggregator rings On Second Thoughts... Are you Inclusive or Exclusive?
EDITORIAL |
AS
Tim Sykes Head of Content
well as talking about innovation at Packaging Europe, we like to practise it. That’s why we’ve partnered with HP on our #unboxingEurope project to create the multi-versioned packaging in which the magazine you are reading was delivered. Thousands of other subscribers throughout Europe are receiving the January edition of Packaging Europe in one of 20 versions of a corrugated box, digitally printed with a stylised map of their region. The 20 versions of the box fit together to create a complete map of Europe – and a beautiful masterpiece of corrugated art. Last year in Israel I had the opportunity to view the HP PageWide C500 digital press for corrugated, and was struck by the new possibilities of this technology, particularly for direct-to-consumer models. Customisation of secondary and tertiary packaging appears a shrewd strategy for an international brand to engage with its consumers on a local scale, particularly at a time when many people are reacting against the homogenising effects of globalisation. The idea of making meaningful local connections across the breadth of a continent very much chimes with Packaging Europe’s internationalist outlook, which we proudly restate in this year of Brexit (or perhaps ‘Brexit?’) and amid broader antagonism toward global problem-solving and idea-sharing. So now seems the perfect time to conduct a customisation experiment with our own packaging. That’s the short story behind our unique collaboration. The resulting project began with a bespoke, die-cut corrugated sleeve created by HP’s marketing team. This was augmented with stunning graphic design created by our very own Gareth Harrey, who borrowed typography from the newspapers and mass transit systems of countries depicted to heighten local relevance. The boxes were then printed on an HP PageWide C500 Press by the third party in this collaboration: Brescia’s LIC Packaging.
to win a complete set of all 20 boxes, which can be assembled to create a limited edition, 110cm x 100cm original and stunning work of art for your wall. If you didn’t get the memo, we’ve invited subscribers to create an unboxing video with their Packaging Europe box… but if it’s too late for that I can confirm that Packaging Europe will accept artificially staged re-unboxing videos and indeed any kind of social engagement that makes us smile. Simply post your video on Twitter, tagged @PackagingEurope and #unboxingEurope. We’ll reward our favourite videos with the complete set. Don’t be shy! Remember, you’ll be participating in a serious experiment!
Win the complete artwork!
Tim Sykes ts@packagingeurope.com @PackEuropeTim
As part of our campaign, we are exploring how digital printed customisation can generate digital engagement. You have an opportunity
Within this edition of the magazine we’ll be exploring the contexts around digital print and customisation, and setting the tone for the year by looking at many of the other key issues that will drive packaging innovation in 2019. Inevitably, sustainability is at the forefront, and we survey the latest thinking around how to increase use of PCR in packaging, as well as sharing exclusive interviews with New Plastic Economy’s Sander Defruyt and PCEP’s David Baker. We also take a look at the latest in design for e-commerce, take the pulse of medical packaging, and share the Packaging Europe team’s technology predictions for the coming year in food and beverages. Also in this edition: smart coatings, container glass, a design competition, intralogistics, barrier papers – and the wonderful Jocelyne Ehret is the first to occupy our new guest column ‘On Second Thoughts...’, which aims to challenge widely held ideas.
Tim Sykes
Packaging Europe | 5 |
ADVENTURES IN DIGITALLY PRINTED CORRUGATED In this month’s cover story we reflect on our unprecedented collaboration with HP and LIC to distribute the magazine in a digitally printed, multi-version corrugated box. Tim Sykes talks to HP’s experts and thought leaders in brand innovation to explore the ideas that this project touches upon.
IT
strikes me that in packaging design right now we have the fortune of witnessing a perfect storm of technological advance and market conditions. Digitisation of media and retail channels is creating a need and a chance for brands to engage with consumers in new ways. There’s an impetus to connect the dots between the various physical and digital moments of truth – and increasingly brand owners possess the data about consumers to personalise those engagements either side of the digital/physical divide. Meanwhile, rapid advances in the quality, agility and value proposition of digital printing means that marketeers can now look upon almost any packaging substrate as an agile communication medium. Already an important material for in-store communication, as well as being the default packaging in e-commerce,
corrugated is widely regarded as the digital print market with the most exciting potential. Advances such as last year’s launch of the HP PageWide C500 bring digital flexibility along with analogue print quality to corrugated board.
The branding opportunity Gil Horsky, director of global innovation at Mondelēz, shared his views on the gravitational pull exerted by customisation. “Today’s consumers, especially the ‘millennial’ demographic, are expecting FMCGs to enable them to purchase and create personalised product experiences,” he remarked. “The personalisation trend is linked to one’s desire to share possessions and to demonstrate social badge value. In fact, it is Packaging Europe | 7 |
Hot off the press - the first die cuts in the Packaging Europe-HP collaboration emerge from LIC Packaging’s PageWide C500 press in Brescia.
becoming more and more important that products and packaging are designed upfront to be ‘Instagramable’. Digital printing has proven to be an impactful technology for brand owners to execute packaging personalisation campaigns that can positively impact top-line sales and consumer engagement.” The personalisation trend is without doubt being fuelled by awareness that younger generations, submersed in digital media, are prepared to pay a premium for personalised content. But individualised content also attends to a more universal human need. “People love feeling unique or being magically surprised with a personal touch. That’s why for example luxury brands hire calligraphers to craft personal notes. Digital print and mass customisation seem to be just the beginning of a big revolution,” suggested Julie Asschenfeldt (creative director for packaging at VMLY&R).
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I asked Julie how she responded to our collaboration with HP in this context. “Packaging Europe has launched a brand-new communication channel, and I’ll tell you – I wish all my clients were so brave and pioneering! The consumer’s landscape is transforming constantly. That’s why brands should embrace the change and maybe even anticipate their most whimsical customers. Brands must surprise the consumer with exciting experiences and a fresh new vision possibly every day. “You can now customise virtually anything, from the shape and size of boxes or envelopes… and still influencers show us that unboxing must be as exciting as the gift itself. From an often neglected object on a shelf to a full brand experience, packaging is evolving from three dimensions to further, hidden, emotional ones – and that seems to be the direction even here at Y&R, which recently
merged with VML to offer ‘a new brand experience’. So thank you, Packaging Europe, for paving the way once again.” How do brand owners get to grips with the possibilities provided by digital print, and how does digital print cater to the needs of brands? One of the world’s best people to address these questions is Jose Gorbea, currently EMEA brand owner at HP, and previously responsible for marketing and digital operations at Mondelēz International. “Maybe at the start marketeers thought of customisation in terms of the Coca-Cola campaign but now they are beginning to notice that digital print is available as a strategic tool,” he told Packaging Europe. “We’re teaching them to approach packaging as a media channel, alongside TV, Facebook, etc. When you encourage consumers to create stories via digital print, this generates earned media. You featured a good example of this in Packaging | 10 | Packaging Europe
Europe magazine last year: where Trident chewing gum printed consumers’ photos of different Mexican locations on its packaging, in the process generating more than 30 million social media impressions in Mexico alone. If you take this approach, it starts to look more like an investment than a cost in the P&L. However, this process is still in its infancy. People are aware of the possibilities but the market is in need of education as to the possibilities.” Applying this earned media principle to Packaging Europe’s versioning experiment, Jose suggests that taking the next step to full personalisation would be key to maximising impact. “The idea of connecting different locations to build a bigger map, and therefore having something that is locally relevant but fitting within a global framework, is beautiful,” he remarked. “As an extension, you could perhaps look to source more content from your readers. This
project is a great execution of one-way communication, but once you have two-way communication, it takes you to the next level in terms of generating digital engagement.”
The value proposition for corrugated It’s easy to get lost in the creative vistas unlocked by digital print, but the value of agility goes beyond enabling customisation, as Simon Goldsack (worldwide brand manager, HP PageWide Industrial Corrugated) likes to emphasise when he’s talking to brand owners. “We’re cutting out a lot of process in comparison with analogue, meaning you can go to market much faster,” he observed. “A brand owner can go from PDF to POS in a matter of hours, which is great if you want topical content from
TV or billboards reflected in the packaging. But the other side of the coin is the efficiency that can be gained in the supply chain. Using analogue systems can mean ordering higher volumes than actually required for a particular campaign. So switching to digital print can involve reducing the need for logistics and warehousing capabilities. The brand can also print as many or few units as it needs. It can test the market and amend the artwork before committing to volumes, whereas with analogue print they would be stuck with the original artwork. The flexibility of being able to change should your product fail is extremely interesting.” The Italian converter LIC Packaging, which printed the bespoke boxes in our new collaboration, invested last year in an HP PageWide C500 digital press for corrugated, seeing unmet demand in the big retail channels, especially driven
Packaging Europe | 11 |
by the food and beverage sectors. Piero Bertoldo, president of LIC, commented: “In the past the cost and the speed of digital printing were significant limitations, but with the C 500 these have been overcome, so we can offer the technology to all our customers.” As Piero implied, an important step forward has been delivering the costs and speeds that make digital viable at mass production as well as short runs. The C500 on which this magazine’s box was printed also boasts of offset-matching print quality, and food-safe water-based inks – an important characteristic when the shelf-ready packaging market for fresh produce is a key target. “The combination of these breakthrough developments in the C500 provides the entire value chain (converter, brand and consumer) with a unique solution to the most demanding corrugated packaging requirements,” suggested Cristobal Macedo, worldwide sales director, HP PageWide Industrial Corrugated.
Market openings So which are the applications driving demand right now? “Digital printing is increasingly the choice for not only displays but marketing related applications developed especially using digital printing possibilities,” continued Cristobal. “These include segments such as winery and distillery, fruits and vegetables and SRP, which are normally sold at the retail space and help attract the consumer´s attention. Meanwhile, e-commerce applications are also growing strongly, as brands are very interested in effectively communicating within consumers’ homes. Once again, it´s all about connecting the brand to the consumer - wherever the consumer is.”
Simon Goldsack regards e-commerce as a market particularly ripe for a digital makeover. “Businesses have traditionally shipped their products in brown boxes and inserted some promotional media inside the box,” he said. “They are now realising that consumers aren’t paying much attention to the insert. This has led to experimenting with new strategies, such as printing content on the inside of the box that engages with the customer, for example to upsell or to prompt social media activity. We have brands that are successfully doing this by printing QR codes.” When we consider the parcels that typically drop on our doormat (with the exception of this edition of Packaging Europe), it’s clear that e-tailers haven’t yet gone far in this particular journey. Amazon is now occasionally using its packaging for promotions, such as the Christmas film campaign featuring The Grinch, but mostly we are still receiving those same old brown boxes. Jose Gorbea feels that a tipping point may not be far away. “Once a big player like Amazon decides to do a big campaign that’s truly personalised, for example around the giver or recipient of a gift, it will break the rules in that industry and we’ll see lots of others emulating them,” he predicted. “The question corrugated should be asking itself is how to monetise these possibilities. It might involve personalised coupons or personalised advertising. If you think about the volumes of parcels Amazon deals with, just imagine the opportunity of being able to deliver a billion personalised adverts across Europe on a monthly basis.” So it is reasonable to conclude that we are still in the early days of the corrugated transformation, envisaged by HP, from analogue to digital printing. We’re in the eye of a perfect storm – and sometime soon we can expect it to make landfall. Packaging Europe | 13 |
IK’s Dr Isabell Schmidt
Petcore’s Christian Crépet
PlasticsEurope’s Adrian Whyle
THE PCR CHALLENGE A central plank in creating a circular economy in plastics is utilising more and more recyclate as a secondary raw material. This is easier said than done – complicated by the diversity of polymers in use, the fractured nature of collection, sorting and recycling provision across Europe, and investment in scale dictated by the chicken/egg dynamic of supply and demand. Packaging Europe spoke to some of the industry bodies best placed to comment on the progress and the bottlenecks.
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ecycling rates of plastic packaging in Europe still have a distance to go but have been moving in the right direction relatively quickly – and 2016 figures show that of the 16.7 million tons collected across the EU, Norway and Switzerland, more than double the amount entering landfill was recycled. On the other hand, a combined 59 per cent was not recycled (landfill or incineration), and of course the 16.7 million tons exclude the plastic packaging that didn’t enter the appropriate waste stream. As we have reported over the last year and more, big industry players and cross-value chain projects have been dedicating serious work and substantive commitments to realising the circular economy. In the area of flexible plastics, Packaging Europe will be bringing news of the outstanding progress made by the CEFLEX initiative in mapping the way forward.
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The supply problem “We’d have used more PET if there was more available,” kp’s Daniel Dayan rather ruefully told us in the autumn, and the consensus around industry is that supply is the first bottleneck in putting more PCR back into packaging. “Currently there isn’t enough recyclate to fulfil demand, and therefore we cannot ensure by ourselves that we meet our targets,” Dr Isabell Schmidt, managing director, Circular Economy at IK (representing the German plastics industry), told Packaging Europe. Yet it isn’t a simple need to ‘process more’: shifts in supply have implications all the way down the value chain. “The possibilities for processing do exist, but decisions have to be made, and the packaging manufacturers’ customers are the main decision makers, i.e. brand owners who want to package their paint or their chocolate. They decide what
Packaging Europe | 15 |
Recycling – 40.9%
Landfill – 20.3%
Plastic Packaging waste treatment in 2016 (EU28+NO/CH) Source: PlasticsEurope
Energy recovery – 38.8%
they want in their packaging. Therefore a dialogue along the supply chain is so important. Our members cannot decide what kind of packaging their customers want to buy. It only works if demand from the brand owner is there. However, new sorting facilities have been built so that the new recycling quotas can be fulfilled in accordance to the new packaging law, so there is progress.” Economics and infrastructure are another barrier to upscaling. “The easy availability of landfilling, which is still the cheapest option for plastic waste disposal in several Member States, the poor waste management infrastructure and inadequate collection schemes and the lack of investment in infrastructure to process material in Europe are key aspects to consider that influence the quantities and quality of PCR,” remarked Adrian Whyle, resource efficiency senior manager at PlasticsEurope.
Coherent infrastructure In a number of Member States waste collection and sorting infrastructure are still in their early stages of development. Meanwhile, in other countries, such as the UK, consumers are faced with bewilderment at the number of collection | 16 | Packaging Europe
systems and how to properly dispose of waste within 300 or more different collection schemes. Against this backdrop, according to Adrian, harmonised collection of packaging waste is a prerequisite to increasing volumes of PCR. Christian Crépet (executive director of Petcore) concurs. “Harmonised collection is really important,” he said. “It would be ideal if Europe-wide the quality of collection is the same. As examples, the UK focuses on collection of mixed plastics, for Spain it’s mixed PET, in Italy bottles are separated. In Belgium there is investment into separating bottles and trays, and separating clear from opaque. It would also be progress – and more easily achievable – to harmonise the counting process. Ideally, it would also be beneficial to count net weight after the recycler’s operations to have a common accounting system.” All PET beverage bottles and most PET trays are now designed to be recycled. European PET recyclers currently have an unused capacity of 296,400 tons and brand owners are committing to use ever more rPET – so more coherent European-wide collection would help meet a real demand. Some pressure groups and some legislators advocate deposit return schemes as the ideal pathway. Adrian Whyle urges a certain caution.
“Uncertainty over DRS schemes may, in some quarters, inhibit short-term decisions to invest in sorting capacity,” he told Packaging Europe. “This valuable stream of beverage containers will not appear in general recyclates’ collection, thus reshaping the economics of sorting the recyclates that remain in a household’s recycling bin. DRS changes the ownership of the collected material a brand owner / retailer may decide to use the material collected by their own DRS and use it for their own packaging production.” The danger is that while a closed loop system may increase the availability of certain grades of food contact material, it can leave less valuable material in kerbside collection, with the potential of unintended consequences on overall recycling rates. More broadly, greater investments in European facilities able to process the separately collected waste into high quality secondary raw materials are needed in order to provide sufficient quantities of PCR at the right quality. “In terms of supply, with proposals for minimum recycled content we may face unexpected market distortions resulting in limits of the availability of PCR on the domestic market, as this material may well have end markets within and outside the EU,” Adrian said. “For example, an exporter of food grade packaging into Europe will only be able to use food contact recyclates produced within Europe. Hence, they will be looking to source such material from the European market with the result that less material will be available for European converters.” A particular concern on restrictions in supply, he suggests, is how this might negatively impact SMEs as they may struggle in sourcing recycled materials of the right quality, quantity and price. Meanwhile, following China’s import ban plastic waste for recycling is finding new homes, in countries such as Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia. However, with potential moves to raise the bar higher on quality for imported material to these destinations, this is likely to increase the amount of low-grade materials that are already struggling to find a home. Encouragingly, according to Adrian, in response to the lack of available export markets, we are seeing waste management companies making investments in Europe to better process plastics.
The German experience IK as an association has defined two goals, one concerning recyclability and the other the use of recyclate. “We aim to process a million tons of recyclate by 2025 within plastics packaging,” said Dr Isabell Schmidt. “That’s a lot considering that as part of its new plastics strategy, the EU commission invited the industry to process 10 million tons across Europe, and not just for packaging, but also construction, automotive and various other industries. Of course, packaging is a very high value application compared to construction or agricultural products, which makes it harder to use PCR. On the one hand, there are big limitations, for example in the area of food packaging because of food contact. Although there are high quality recyclates that can be used for food contact in the area of PE, there are few options for other types of plastics. However, I wouldn’t put such a high priority on food contact: why start with the most difficult thing!” The most important factor with recycling for food contact is clean collection. “Recyclates from the yellow sack collection is often very mixed and dirty. (Yellow sacks are used in Germany to collect light packaging waste). Clean collection is key. I heard that there are recycling plants in the UK that create food
grade granulate from recycling milk bottles, but this is probably the exception. The challenge is that at the moment there simply aren’t enough recycled plastics available in the quality that the packaging industry uses and requires even outside the food industry. There are some examples of successful products, for example by Werner & Mertz and Henkel, but scaling up is tricky when there simply isn’t enough recyclate available. It will be necessary to invest more and create better sorting and higher quality processing when recycling by adding extra processing steps in order to get better quality recyclates. This of course costs money.” The other challenge is demand. There is an opportunity to use recyclates in various types of packaging. For example, the Germany company Jokey Plastics has had a paint bucket in its portfolio containing a high portion of recycled plastics for several years, but demand for it hasn’t been huge. “The material is grey in colour which may put some people off,” Isabell said, “but we have to create acceptance and understanding that that’s just the way recycling plastics looks, but is still fit for purpose, similar to recycled paper, along the lines of ‘Grey is the new Green’.” Additional consumer ‘pull’ may also be required to translate the added value of PCR (more expensive than virgin plastics) to economic viability.
Quality For a while industry has pointed to the need for consistent quality in PCR if serious volumes are going to return to packaging, especially in higher grade applications. “It is of utmost importance that the quality and safety of recyclates going back in (for example) food contact is safeguarded,” Adrian Whyle said. “The appropriate legislative safeguards are a must, although the time taken to develop these can be frustratingly slow.” The quality challenge also has a relationship with market dynamics. “Recyclers in Germany are SMEs, compared to big multinational companies such as Dow and Borealis who are able to produce large volumes of homogeneous, high quality raw materials,” remarked Isabell Schmidt. “This is a big challenge when producing recyclates, as the quality needs to be reliable: we can’t afford to interrupt the production process because a machine is clogged up. In the current landscape, most recyclers aren’t big enough to be able to deliver that.” However, raw material producers are increasingly interested in the recycling business, as exemplified by the Borealis acquisition of mtm Plastics GmbH. “This kind of purchase enables suppliers to produce material blends in homogeneous quality,” said Isabell. “So producers can buy a ready-made mix containing a certain percentage of recycled plastics rather than having to mix the product themselves, which makes processing a lot easier.”
The game changer The paradigm around PCR may of course be rewritten if and when feedstock (or chemical) recycling comes into play. “This provides a potential solution for safely converting low quality plastics waste into high quality plastics and is unsurprisingly an area that plastics producers are actively engaged in,” concluded Adrian Whyle. “Recent announcements by BASF and SABIC highlighted their work in converting waste plastics into feedstock which is turned back into virgin plastics. Styrenics Circular Solutions are also looking at such types of processes for polystyrene. Whilst still in the development phase, these technologies offer exciting potential – if the economic and technical challenges can be addressed. Packaging Europe | 17 |
POLYOLEFINS UNITED Founded in 2017, the embryonic Polyolefin Circular Economy Platform (PCEP) project is starting to take shape. On taking on the role of chairman in December 2018, David Baker (day job: group industry affairs director at RPC) spoke to Tim Sykes about the organisation’s aims and the conclusions of its recent workshop.
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olyolefins account for 70 per cent of plastic packaging in Europe. Of challenges through innovation,” David commented. “Speaking in a personal the 27 million tons of post-consumer plastic waste collected in Europe capacity, there’s a lot of exciting work going on at the polymer level, and I’m sure in 2016, 16 million were polyolefins, 12 million of which are packag- chemical recycling is going to make an important contribution. Food contact is ing. Against the backdrop of EU Commission pressure to increase recycled another area where I expect innovation to make a difference. Enhanced sorting polymers from three to ten million tons by 2025, these statistics underline the technologies such as employing near infrared or watermarking to automatically timely insight of founding partners PlasticsEurope and EuPC: namely, that the sort out e.g. food grade materials will inevitably play an important role.” polyolefin value chain, lacking a platform analogous to PET’s Petcore, could The November workshop also made some strategic conclusions. First, there really do with a unifying body to identify the barriers and opportunities around was unanimity around the need for better cooperation between stakeholders – recycling rates. and collaboration with brand owners was regarded as crucial. Secondly, there According to David Baker, in its first year PCEP has made already impressive was consensus around the need for a shared set of EU rules governing collecprogress under the leadership of previous chairmanship of Borealis’s Eugenio tion and sorting practices and standards for recyclate quality. The third trend Longo. “Having established itself as an independent legal entity, the initial focus identified was a need for education of consumers to correct misconceptions was on the not inconsiderable task of getting everyone around the table,” he that recycled plastics are inherently of low grade and inferior to virgin materials. told Packaging Europe. “Many of the big players are now involved. We’ve now Finally, there was acknowledgement of the need for consistency in eco-design, put together a Steering Board representing polyolefin producers, converters and and therefore for some coordination to ensure that existing eco-design tools recyclers to address our strategic goals of innovation with a circular economy point in the same direction. focus, enhanced collection and sorting systems, and developing markets for These attitudes would appear to point to a collaborative mood in the world recycled polyolefins.” of polyolefins. “There’s always competitive pressure but everyone I’ve spoken The task of translating those objectives into concrete action began with with seems to believe that we have a better chance of achieving our common a workshop held in Brussels in November 2018, objectives and EU demands if we work together,” featuring over 90 participants. “The workshop David remarked. “If we want to move forward, we David Baker was a very useful first step in pooling expertise need to try new ideas, which means we have to be from across the value chain,” David said. “We’re innovative and open-minded.” now sifting through the hundreds of brilliant ideas Indeed, PCEP gives the impression of a particuthat were pooled, grouping them together under larly open-minded organisation, which is ready to the respective strategic goals, and will publish a collaborate with existing initiatives. David referred roadmap in 2019.” to existing projects such as the impressive CEFLEX Having set overarching objectives and milestones, both as a model to emulate and a likely collaborator much of the progress on the granular challenges – with an onus on sharing best practice and avoidwill be tackled by subsidiary workstreams and working replicating good work that others are already shops. As David Baker envisages it, PCEP is likely be doing. Therefore, a priority for David as chairman will characterised by a ‘bottom upwards’ dynamic. be to encourage more organisations to engage with We can’t yet discuss concrete areas of technolPCEP, and to extend the membership to the brand ogy PCEP will explore but it’s evident that the owners, retail, waste management, and eventually platform will play an active role in defining the municipalities, who have an important part to play innovation a circular polyolefin economy will require. and knowledge to contribute. It can only be for the “I’m agnostic about the particular approaches we good of all parties that any stakeholder can now, in need to adopt, but I’m confident that our industry, talking to PCEP, address the polyolefin value chain which has always been innovative, can meet its as a whole. | 18 | Packaging Europe
A LINE IN THE SAND: INSIDE THE NEW GLOBAL COMMITMENT TO CIRCULAR PLASTICS Following the announcement that over 250 major stakeholders have signed up to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s groundbreaking pledge, Tim Sykes spoke to Sander Defruyt (lead, New Plastics Economy initiative) about the vision and its practical implications.
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he Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) introduced the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment in Bali on 29-30 October at the Our Oceans conference, establishing a new benchmark in the drive for a circularity in polymers. Signatories spanning the value chain include leading brand owners Unilever, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Walmart, major players in plastic packaging such as Mondi, Amcor, Borealis and ALPLA, waste management specialists, academica and public sector bodies. All of these organisations are united behind shared principles: • Elimination of problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging through redesign, innovation, and new delivery models is a priority. • Reuse models are applied where relevant, reducing the need for single-use packaging. • All plastic packaging is 100 per cent reusable, recyclable, or compostable. • All plastic packaging is reused, recycled, or composted in practice. • The use of plastic is fully decoupled from the consumption of finite resources. • All plastic packaging is free of hazardous chemicals, and the health, safety, and rights of all people involved are respected.
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The Global Commitment is a radical upscaling, rather than a new direction, in the New Plastics Economy project. “Over the past four years the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has been rallying businesses and governments behind a positive vision of a circular economy for plastic,” New Plastics Economy’s Sander Defruyt told Packaging Europe. “In January 2018 we brought together 11 leading companies committed to work towards 100 per cent reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging by 2025. By launching the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, the Foundation and UN Environment have taken this momentum to the next level.”
Targets and investment “The Global Commitment draws a line in the sand in the fight against plastic waste and pollution by uniting businesses and governments from around the world to tackle plastic pollution at the source instead of only addressing the symptoms,” he continued. “It does so by eliminating the plastic items we don’t need; innovating so all plastic we do need is designed to be safely reused, recycled, or composted; and circulating everything we use to keep it in the economy
and out of the environment. It is the largest effort ever to mobilise businesses behind one vision and one set of concrete 2025 targets that can be pivotal to help end the plastic pollution crisis: the more than 250 signatories together cover 20 per cent of the global plastic packaging market and more organisations are signing up every day since the launch.” The Commitment sets minimum targets for signatories and details of progress and concrete actions made by each individual organisation will be reported. The EMF and UN Environment plan to work with members of the commitment to help meet targets, and also to review and raise ambition levels every 18 months. According to Sander Defruyt, such leadership is likely to include fostering collaborative projects to overcome core challenges – for example, moving away from problematic or unnecessary packaging, or experimenting with new delivery models to get products to people without relying on single-use packaging. The vision is underpinned by investment as well as concrete goals. Among the signatories are five venture capital funds that have committed to invest US$200 million by 2025. Moreover, some 15 financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank, with a combined US$2.5 trillion in assets under management have endorsed the Global Commitment: evidence according to the EMF that the investment community puts plastic high on its agenda.
Reuse vs recycling vs composting The text of the Global Commitment is agnostic about the relative merits of reuse, recycling and composting. “All three of these strategies will be necessary to achieve a circular economy for plastic, no one single approach can solve the issue of plastic pollution by itself,” Sander commented. “We cannot simply recycle or compost our way out of the challenge we face. We need to start by eliminating the plastic items we do not need – the throwaway straws, cutlery and cups; unnecessary packaging and items that can be replaced with better alternatives. For the plastics we do need, innovation is necessary to ensure that all the items put on the market stay in circulation and never end up in the environment. For this, we have to prioritise reuse and ensure that all plastic items are fully recyclable or compostable. The latter not being a blanket solution but a viable alternative for a few targeted applications.”
So all approaches are valid – but reuse would appear to be first among equals. “We feel that reuse businesses modes and applications are still underexplored, probably due to the association of reuse with old-fashioned practices or being backwards,” Sander elaborated. “The opposite is true however. The brilliant reuse solutions we see emerging are based on innovation in a range of fields. In the IT sector, CupClub for example is using app-based technology to run a reuse drinking cups model. In the materials sector, Splosh uses dissolvable pouches containing a small amount of concentrated detergent. By mixing this with water, you can refill your home cleaners, washing up liquid, or washing detergent, cutting plastic waste by more than 90 per cent. In the retail sector, Czech technology company MIWA provides an innovative system that allows transporting, selling, and purchasing goods with a minimum amount of packaging waste. These are just a few examples of the potential of reuse. Unfortunately, the exploration of such models receives too little attention currently, but we believe significant business opportunities can be captured in this area, as set out in our second report, The New Plastics Economy: Catalysing action.”
The ticking clock Meeting the ambitious goals of the Commitment will require fast action to pluck the low-hanging fruit. “Many signatories are capturing quick wins and we strongly encourage others to follow their lead,” Sander observed. “For example, M&S is removing single use plastic cutlery and straws this year. Colgate Palmolive will eliminate PVC packaging by 2020 and others have eliminated PVC from their packaging already. Eliminating such unnecessary and problematic plastic is something that can be done very quickly. We encourage all signatories to prioritise actions like these as they can have a significant impact in a minimum amount of time.” However, the reality is that we can only reach circular economy nirvana by aligning industry and government to develop rigorous strategies and systems to deal with irreplaceable single-use plastic applications. “This takes time,” concluded Sander. “That’s why the Global Commitment’s common vision and 2025 targets are so important and why we encourage more businesses and governments around the world to sign up and join us on this journey.” Packaging Europe | 21 |
PREP-FREE, LEAK-FREE Rieke made a significant statement for the e-commerce channel in Q4 2018 with the launch of a new portfolio of non-leak trigger and pump dispenser solutions. Tim Sykes visited the company’s Leicester, UK, R&D centre to find out what is driving Rieke’s new innovation focus.
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en per cent of global retail sales in 2017 derived from e-commerce, which as a channel is forecast to grow at nearly 20 per cent CAGR over the next three years. Moreover, FMCG e-sales seem to be growing at a higher rate still – achieving 26 per cent in 2016. Given that this surge is driven more at the expense of bricks and mortar than by overall retail growth, it’s no secret that adding value to the online shopping market is one of the great opportunities for packaging today. Moreover, in this still young marketplace there is a profound requirement for packaging optimised for the direct-toconsumer supply chain. Products passing through the e-commerce channel have to withstand more frequent and rigorous handling: statistically, a package is handled on average over twenty times (four times as often as in the bricks-and-mortar) and, anecdotally, it is more likely to be tossed into a van or dropped on a doorstep. If packaging is insufficiently robust, the costs to a brand can be significant: according to Rieke, replacing a destroyed item can cost up to 17 times as much as shipping. But reputational damage can be even more costly. “Wrap rage is a big story today,” Ed Wills, Rieke’s global marketing director, told Packaging Europe. “We’ve undertaken a lot of social listening, which demonstrates that there are a lot of consumers out there who are angry either about products that arrive damaged or in excessive layers of packaging. In the era of online retail the impact of packaging mishaps are amplified instantaneously, as an angry consumer is often more motivated to post a review than a satisfied one.” A particularly challenging product category for the small parcel delivery channel are liquid products, which are liable to break and leak during shipping. This has been a major R&D focus for Rieke, as a leading global player in dispensing systems for personal care, food and healthcare packaging. Could Rieke deliver innovations that enabled liquid products to reach the consumer without damage or leakage – and eliminating the need for multiple layers of secondary packaging? “For a few years we have been talking to Amazon to understand the pain points and gathering feedback from our brand owner customers,” said Howard Manning, Rieke’s VP global product development & launch. “This learning has been applied to testing of standard products and investigating the causes of problems. Through this process we were able to define, for instance, the sweet spot for the opening force to activate the lock on a pump: enough to withstand the typical impacts throughout the supply chain, while still being easy for consumers to operate.” The Amazon collaboration has already delivered generic solutions to the market, in addition to which Rieke has been working on customer-specific projects across the world, and a project in 2014 saw Rieke respond to a problem
in Asia that a major FMCG brand owner was having with regard to broken liquid packages being delivered to consumers when ordered online. In short, design for e-commerce is long-term R&D strategy for Rieke. “The guiding principle is that the consumer experience and the product condition must be the same for e-commerce as it would be if bought off the shelf,” Howard Manning commented. “The product needs to look, feel and work the same way.” The fruits of this approach can at last be observed in Rieke’s new portfolio of pump and trigger dispenser packaging. APASS certified as prep-free for Amazon and meeting the ISTA-6 standard, the packs are made to navigate the challenging conditions of e-commerce. A couple of these generic solutions will be already familiar to observant viewers of the packaging market: the LDS 2cc ECOM pump, featuring a plug seal that prevents leakage in transit, was a Diamond Finalist in the Dow Awards for Packaging Innovation in 2018, while a trigger sprayer developed in partnership with Amazon was soft-launched last year. If the new suite of generic solutions can be seen as a culmination of an extensive R&D effort, it would be a mistake to regard it as the end. According to Rieke, in addition to ongoing product development projects involving India, China and North America, there is more innovation in the pipeline. “E-commerce is clearly the big driver of growth for the coming years and we’re continuing work on solving problems for the market,” concluded Howard Manning. “The eight new products we are launching now are just the beginning: you can expect to see Rieke bring a lot more innovation around other dimensions of e-commerce in the future.”
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TURNING THE TIDE:
THE ECO-BOX E-COMMERCE RETHINK
P&G has introduced a new bag-in-box for North American e-commerce channels to ship Liquid Tide laundry detergent with greatly increased efficiency. Tim Sykes spoke to some of the creators of the new format.
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any of the most audacious recent innovations in packaging have been driven by the demands of online retail, as the model begins to mature and industry works out the requirements and pitfalls of its extended and bumpy supply chains. Garçon Wines’ ‘letterboxable’ flat profile wine bottle, Riecke’s leak-free spray pump and Uflex’s waterless flower AMAP packaging are just three examples of reinventing formats in direct response to changing distribution patterns. In the background, Amazon has played an active role in driving adaptation and efficiency through its Frustration Free Packaging program and broader engagement with brands and OEMs. In this context, Tide has ingeniously reimagined its classic liquid detergent with a new Eco-Box package containing an ultra-concentrated formula designed for e-commerce in North America. The new Tide Eco-Box arrives on a shopper’s doorstep in a shipping-safe cardboard box. On the inside the box is a sealed bag of ultra-compacted Tide liquid laundry detergent. To use, a perforated cardboard flap is peeled off to reveal a dosing cup and a new ‘no-drip’ twist tap. To make dosing simpler on flat surfaces, the box includes pull-out legs to raise the height of the box, so the cup fits easily beneath the tap. The pack features one further convenience feature that is hidden to the user: P&G’s designers have incorporated a cardboard ramp into the inside of the package, so that gravity ensures all the detergent is used without consumers having to tilt the box.
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‘Eco-Box’ was named as a kind of pun, underlining the ‘eco’ in ‘e-com’: the format will have a lighter shipping footprint, as it dispenses with the need for an overbox or void fill as is frequently required when sending bricks-and-mortar packaging through online retail channels. Shipping in its own container of course chimes with the best practice Amazon has been promoting through the Frustration Free Packaging program, and the design meets a variety of retailer certifications, including ISTA 6A-SIOC and the ISTA 3A industry standards.
Innovation for the last mile To eliminate excess packaging, P&G designed the Tide Eco-Box to ship as efficiently as possible on its journey from a manufacturing site to a retailer’s warehouse to a consumer’s front door. “The Tide Eco-Box has been designed to reduce the environmental impact of shipping laundry detergent in e-commerce, which is a rapidly growing part of our business,” Elizabeth Kinney, North America Fabric Care sustainability, P&G, told Packaging Europe. “The ‘last mile’ – or getting the product to the consumer’s door – remains the biggest challenge, both economically and environmentally in e-commerce, so the team started with that specific challenge and designed back from there. As a result, the changes we’ve made include designing the Eco-Box to contain less packaging, 60 per cent less plastic and 30 per cent less water in the product formula than the current 150 oz Tide press-tap. Additionally, the boxed design doesn’t require any secondary re-boxing or bubble wrap.” These changes to the product and package make an appreciable difference to shipping weights: that of the current 96 load Tide press-tap of liquid detergent per container is about 12 lbs [5.4 kg], while the weight for the compacted 96 load Tide Eco-Box wrapped for shipping is just 7.9 lbs [3.6 kg]. Ty Martin, associate director, Fabric Care Packaging Development, shared some insights into the challenges of the R&D project. “In general, the impact forces experienced in e-commerce shipping and handling are challenging for packages containing liquid,” he said. “The larger and heavier the liquid content, the more difficult it becomes to sustain drops, especially for rigid plastic containers. The unique ability of corrugated boxes and flexible bags to absorb impact energy without failure was part of what led us to the technologies we are using
in Tide Eco-Box. Of course, we were diligent about ensuring the consumer experience was equal to or better than the current bottles. This required going beyond readily available designs by adding in unique features such as the internal ramp and the collapsible legs.” The packaging development project addressed the classic last-mile pain points in three specific areas, according to Ty. This begins with the basic structure. “The Eco-Box is a robust shipper,” he observed. “The boxed design is a great chassis to ship heavy liquids in. The bag-in-box combination offers significantly more puncture resistance than a pouch alone and when combined with a cardboard shell absorbs significantly more impact from drops or falls than a ridged plastic bottle. Secondly, the dose cup and dosing spout are protected in shipment. “The eco-box protects the dosing cap and spout inside of the shipping footprint during shipment and uses a patent-pending opening mechanism to simply transition the spout outside of the footprint for use.” Thirdly, the cubic form facilitates easier storage, shipping and delivery. “In fact, we made the shape so compact we developed collapsible legs to make it easier to position the dose cup underneath the spout when is use,” Ty revealed.
“E-commerce isn’t a trend anymore” The Tide Eco-Box represents the first product launch originating from P&G Fabric Care’s eCommerce Innovation Group. “For the first time, we have designed a package ‘e-comm-Back’ – beginning with the unique challenges and opportunities the e-commerce environment presents,” said Sundar Raman, VP of P&G’s North America Fabric Care business. “This is a fundamentally different approach than we’ve taken in the past and represents our relentless obsession with delighting consumers – wherever they want to purchase our brands.” P&G vows to continue innovating in the e-commerce space as it adapts its product offerings for the channels its consumers are shopping. “We have some pretty exciting e-commerce projects we’re working on, and that shouldn’t be surprising,” says Isaac Hellemn, brand manager for eCommerce innovation in P&G’s Fabric Care group. “E-commerce isn’t a trend anymore, it’s a reality, and we’re excited to keep innovating for it.” The Tide Eco-Box is available exclusively online at major e-commerce retailers in the US from January 2019. Packaging Europe | 25 |
WHAT DOES 2019 MEAN FOR FOOD & BEV?
It’s somehow January again… prompting us to take a moment to think about the future. Our writers share their predictions for the trends that will define the coming year in food and drink packaging.
Tim Sykes E-grocery will take off European growth in both CPG and the general economy is likely to be underwhelming in 2019. It’s neither a secret that progress in the retail sector will be concentrated in e-commerce, nor that dedicated packaging adding value for this channel is one of the big opportunities. The big segment that is relatively undeveloped is the e-grocery, but the signs are that food and bev are beginning to catch up. This will be driven at both ends of the marketplace. Last year saw giant bricks-andmortar retailers making strategic investments and partnerships, while Amazon Fresh is advancing ominously. Meanwhile, agile start-ups have been responsible for some of the most impressive innovation that reveals the potential of the direct-to-consumer model. Among the latter we’ve seen disruptive approaches toward localised sourcing and finding markets for food that would otherwise be wasted. Some of these innovations can be expected to reach a wider audience following market consolidation. What does this mean for packaging? We’re already seeing an exciting wave of packaging innovation driven by the need to optimise packaging for the last mile. Food and beverage packaging will need to undergo the
same transformation: the market will be hungry for prep-free packaging formats that meet the basic brief for product protection and barriers, and which leap out of the box to make that all-important emotional connection with the consumer.
Elisabeth Skoda Automation & AI will continue to amaze The capabilities of Industry 4.0 have matured at a frightening pace and I fully expect that advances will continue to take our breath away. We’re already at a stage where industrial automation combined with connected machinery is delivering impressive efficiencies, and the data collected can be presented as actionable information, collated to meet the requirements of anyone from factory floor technician to COO. Ongoing progress in Artificial Intelligence will supercharge the ability of food and beverage brand owners to leverage this information, extending capabilities further down the value chain than we have seen in the first
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phase of the Industrial Internet of Things. Machine learning will improve decision-making and enable businesses to seize opportunities whose evidence manifests itself at customer level, or customer’s customer level. This could mean identifying micro-trends within the retail channel and making timely adjustments thanks to predictive data based on historic trends. At a time when socio-political chaos could very well impact on markets and when technology is upturning the basics of how we consume, those that prosper will be the smart businesses that can identify shifts and respond to them in time. And it’s already clear that the machines are the smart ones, not us.
Libby White We’ll see ever more connectivity The cost implications of connecting packaging with digital communications through NFC are rapidly reducing as printed electronics technologies mature and scale up, and the latest iPhone can scan tags without launching the reader. Meanwhile, developments in areas such as digital watermarking (initially devised for efficient sorting of post-consumer packaging waste) raise the prospect of making invisible methods of connectivity even cheaper. Connective packaging can have various applications, and it’s when you can leverage the same code or tag for more than one purpose along the supply chain that the added value starts to multiply. Let’s review the possibilities: • Traceability throughout the supply chain – which is value-added for some product categories, and basic licence to trade for others • Embellishing experience at point of sale. Is there a brand that would be indifferent to the possibility of placing a helpful digital shopping advisor next to their product on every shelf? • Connecting the physical product to a deeper brand experience in the digital space: the marketeer’s holy grail. Whether the purchase is bricks-andmortar or online, somewhere between unboxing and the Second Moment of Truth there’s an opportunity to transport the consumer to a world of personalised content that enriches product experience.
• Extended functionality in the home: the connected package can advise the consumer, via their connected devices, that an item on their self-managing shopping list has been replenished. And the devices know when to prompt the consumer that a use-by date is imminent. • Connectivity also has the potential to facilitate better outcomes at end of life, from telling the consumer which waste stream the packaging should enter to communicating with smart detection systems at the sorting plant to raise the purity of recyclate. As our lives in general start to rely on more and more connected devices (fridges, medical injector pens, AR glasses), digital interaction with consumable objects may well start to seem like our basic expectation.
Tim Sykes The sustainability debate will mutate There are a few reasons to expect public discourse around packaging wiill become a bit less heated in the coming year. The media has a short attention span – and European political instability, Trump, climate catastrophe and economic volatility provide plenty of competing anxieties for the seriousminded consumer. But more importantly, there is also visible progress on the key issue of plastic waste. Most of the global brand owners have made substantive commitments on reaching 100 per cent recyclability in a matter of years. Many of the big names in plastics are making similar pledges and following through with transformational design for recycling innovation and strategic procurement of secondary raw materials. Initiatives such as New Plastics Economy and CEFLEX are carrying out the crucial work of knitting the value chain together around a coherent roadmap. This is not to argue that sustainability will be anything other than the number one issue for the industry. However, there are already
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signs that substantive progress on waste has been noted by some of the reasonable voices among the critics of packaging. In 2019 I expect we can at least begin to move on towards a more nuanced discussion with wider society about the environmental challenges associated with CPG. It’s likely there will be an increased recognition that we need to prevent packaging waste from entering the environment at the same time as delivering reducing carbon emissions and minimising food waste. In addition, I think we’re going to see growing discussion of the relative merits of recycling and reuse (personally I’d like to see a lot more LCA investigation carried out in this area). This is more than a theoretical debate. Brands are taking a serious interest in reuse, which is an increasingly viable model in an omnichannel world – and the attraction is about sustaining a direct relationship with the consumer as well as appealing to an intuitive argument about environmental impacts.
REALISING THE POTENTIAL OF PHARMA PACKAGING AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL At AIPIA’s 2018 annual congress one message became very clear: the smart packaging industry has taken major steps forward, and smart innovations have grown from an interesting novelty to a reliable tool that slots neatly into our connected world. “No longer is the focus on how it works,” said Dick de Koning in his presidential opening address. “It’s now all about what it can do for the brand owners.” Elisabeth Skoda takes a look at the drivers and some of the recent developments and innovations in smart pharma.
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onsumers’ engagement with products they buy has grown significantly, as Thomas Schulz, consumer division VP marketing & communications at Constantia Flexibles, explains: “With all the choice available, this is more than simply curiosity but a deeper demand towards these products. Smart or interactive packaging allows to fully satisfy consumers’ needs and brings consumer engagement to the next level. It enables brands to leverage their packaging as a communication and engagement tool and get close to the consumers.” Packs have moved on from being purely informative to offering truly interactive features such as getting urgent questions answered in real time by experts. “Consumers want to be in touch and engage with the brand and the product,” he adds.
Protecting brands and patients Kezzler’s CEO Christine Akselsen points to brand protection as a factor driving development, with firms looking for ways to efficiently stop counterfeit products and unauthorised distribution. “According to WHO estimates, counterfeit medicines worth 73 billion Euros are traded annually. Aside from fulfilling regulatory requirements, pharmaceutical brands are adopting serialisation in order to ensure supply chain visibility, enabling them to track products from creation to consumption and garner deeper insights into the product journey and entire product life cycle. The need to secure the consumer’s trust is another key driver. Serialisation provides a secure ID that, as well as being the vehicle for track and trace, can also be used to engage consumers, enabling them to personally authenticate a product.”
an increasing impact,” Dr Lampka continues. “Intelligent packaging solutions with printed electronics in combination with NFC, RFID or Bluetooth technology can enhance patient adherence and ensure digital interaction between all involved stakeholders.” Improving patient adherence and thereby improving outcome for patients is a major driver, according to Mevia’s CEO Jesper Hassel. “Not taking medicine correctly means that patients are not going to get the full effect of their drug,” he says. “Smart solutions really can help, and the commoditisation of the technology surrounding it means that companies are more open to innovate and try out smart packaging concepts.”
Serialisation for patient security Kezzler has already digitalised billions of individual products in the supply chain. “Our cloud platform enables serialisation by giving every item a unique, secure and traceable identity in the form of a Kezzler code that can be embedded into QR codes, NFC or other labels and placed on the product,” according to Ms Akselsen. “Once applied, Kezzler codes serve as a foundation for numerous custom applications and add-ons from production control and validation, to product history and tracking as well as recall and expiry date handling.”
Harnessing enabler technologies Dr Nadine Lampka, product manager pharma-security at Schreiner MediPharm, views the maturity of the enabler technologies such as RFID/NFC, smartphone capabilities and IoT as the basis for innovation. “There is also an increasing need for more transparency and security in the supply chain to ensure product and patient safety,” she remarks. “Getting connected to the supply chain stakeholders and to relevant data all the way down to the patient is getting more and more important.” There is a clear trend towards solutions employing the smartphone as a verification tool for product identification, authentication and integrity. At the same time, the real-time provided data and information for analytics is seen as a big plus to enhance supply chain security and efficiency. “When it comes to smart packaging in general, digitalisation, patient centricity and an outcome-based approach are some of the factors that have Packaging Europe | 29 |
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This has tangible benefits: “At one point an estimated 40 per cent of Viagra sold in Hong Kong was non-authentic so we worked with Pfizer to apply visible and non-visible codes on Viagra packs that enabled both consumers and Pfizer to authenticate them. As a result the problem of non-authentic Viagra in Hong Kong was resolved within the first 12 months of implementation, resulting in a substantial increase of sales.”
Mobile authentication Schreiner MediPharm’s BitSecure mobile authentication offers the necessary flexibility for direct, on-site verification in real time. The small and printed feature is considered as highly counterfeit-proof, being cost-efficient and sustainable at the same time. “The BitSecure pattern allows a quick confirmation of original prints and can be analysed in real-time in the field by means of selected smartphones using the BitSecure software,” says Dr Lampka. “In addition, the BitSecure pattern can carry production lot specific, encrypted information or other relevant information, such as batch number or target market. This could be beneficial in revealing grey market activities.” The technology uses a high-resolution, random pattern whose delicate details are not discernible by the naked eye. The BitSecure pattern is digitally generated in the pre-press stage. BitSecure originals are printed with very high resolution. Any digital information loses details in the printing process. If a counterfeiter attempts to copy the BitSecure pattern, details are lost compared with the printed original. The quantity of the resulting loss of detail can be analysed by means of a smartphone and corresponding analysis software.
Phone apps Dick de Koning said, “no longer is the focus on how it works.” The market now offers working solutions for pharma. For instance, the dedicated Constantia Interactive brand combines a digitally readable packaging material with a digital platform for data management and a smartphone app customisable to a wide range of customer needs. “Our technology works with all existing packaging formats through image recognition technology, without having to change the products artwork or packaging. When it comes to anti-counterfeiting, a printing technology called digital watermarking can distinguish between a real and a fake product,” Mr Schulz explains. “Our latest printing technology incorporates a marker into the artwork that can barely be seen by the human eye but is detectable through our technology recognising it as a real product.” Similarly, Mevia has designed a solution combining smart packaging, smartphones and the clouds for patients who have to regularly take medication. “When the user takes a pill out of the package that is equipped with a connected GSM device and printed electronic traces, the corresponding electronic trace breaks and the device transfers the data in real time to the user’s app or a cloud-based hub,” Jesper Hassel says. “The corresponding app helps patients and their carers to manage their treatments. It lets them know when they should take a dose and buy a refill, but also empowers them to improve their adherence with information on their treatment and offers two-way communication.”
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Daniel Tedham, Wasdell Group
Jean-Marie Aulnette, TraceLink
Bart Vansteenkiste, Domino
ARE YOU MEETING OR MISSING FMD DEADLINE DAY? Libby White looks behind the scenes of the fast approaching countdown towards the EU FMD directive, due for implementation in February 2019. The Wasdell Group (one of the UK’s leading pharmaceutical contract packaging providers), TraceLink (developers of track and trace network solutions and pharmaceutical serialisation for the life science supply chain) and Domino Printing Sciences (developers of commercial inkjet printing, thermal transfer printing, print and apply machines, digital printing presses and laser printing products) share their insights into the challenges, benefits, and solutions surrounding the implementation of the directive.
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art Vansteenkiste, global sector manager, Life Sciences, Domino Printing Sciences firstly reminds us of the key objectives of the EU FMD: “The EU is demanding that manufacturers of pharmaceutical goods sell their products in tamper-proof packaging that will feature a 2D data matrix code, a human readable unique serial number, a product code, batch number and expiry date for the contents,” he says. “All products under the FMD will need to have clearly displayed, legible codes that can be read by the human eye and a scanner. Medicine manufacturers must ensure their coding and marking equipment can produce the necessary information to sufficient standards, which will enable every stage of the supply chain to easily identify the medicine in question. Any incomplete or faded codes will lead to product rejection, rework or recall – this can cause a back log in the supply chain, resulting in downtime and substantial costs to the company.”
Facing the challenge Jean-Marie Aulnette, TraceLink’s VP EMEA sales, believes that many early serialisation adopters have found that managing the master data, serialisation and compliance data for products in the European market is much more complex
than first thought. Businesses that chose to create point-to-point connections with supply chain partners for the exchange of serialisation data instead of adopting a network-tenant approach created additional layers of complexity. Some of these businesses are still at risk of failing to meet the deadline and if they are not already close to validating their solution, they will almost certainly not be compliant in time. He comments, “These companies have no choice but to rely on support from providers that can deliver cost-effective, pre-validated solutions for data management and exchange to meet the deadline.” Bart Vansteenkiste shares some alarming figures: it is estimated that only around 50 per cent of Europe’s production lines will be FMD ready by the February deadline, with Germany and the UK leading the way in terms of number of companies readily prepared to date. “It is not yet known how the European commission will respond to this, but it is unlikely that they will prevent the production and shipping of half of the medicine market,” he predicts. “Similarly, when the US-based FDA implemented their medicine directive last year, they found out only 40 per cent of US medicine manufacturers would be readily compliant by its November 2017 deadline. Packaging Europe | 33 |
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Following this discovery, an extension was granted, but today only 60 per cent of the US-market is ready – not 100 per cent as the FDA had hoped for.” The EU’s reaction to what will inevitably be a similar situation for FMD come February is not yet clear. But in a high-pressure market, pharmacists will be more willing to distribute products that align with the FMD requirements, rather than risk being involved in a potential legal issue with counterfeit or inadequate medicines. Daniel Tedham, MD of the Wasdell Group, points out that any company that is not close to validating a solution must now look to outsource serialisation to third-party contract partners to make the FMD deadline. “Many manufacturers that do not count packaging as a core competency made the decision to outsource very early in their planning for FMD compliance,” he comments. “Offsetting some of the costs associated with buying and installing new hardware, ensuring the right IT infrastructure was in place and training staff were often the major factors in these decisions. This approach also allowed manufacturers to minimise production downtime required to equip lines. As the deadline looms, outsourcing agreements are likely to become more prevalent.”
Providing solutions Wasdell invested £2.8 million in serialisation capabilities in 2016 and offers compliant products to all markets, including Europe and the US. Daniel Tedham notes: “Our new facility in Ireland will also offer serialisation for all products. As part of its serialisation service, Wasdell also offers three tier aggregation from carton to pallet to ensure compliance with the DSCSA’s enhanced traceability requirements that will phase in as of 2023, and any future changes to regulation in the EU.” TraceLink’s European Union Compliance module offers a network-tenant approach to FMD compliance that allows drug makers to on-board and exchange serialisation data with supply chain partners through a single connection to the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud. The module also supports the provision of compliance reports to the European Medicines Verification System (EMVS) and verification at the point of dispense. TraceLink also offers EU FMD Express, a cost-effective, simplified compliance solution that lets smaller manufacturers comply with EU FMD and integrate with the EU Hub. Domino suggests that for sharp and clear data production at high speeds, Thermal Inkjet printers can produce codes that are easily discernible and main-
tain their quality throughout the supply chain. With superfast drying capabilities, tamper evident labels, which are becoming an integral part of FMD, can now be safely applied without smudging the ink. TIJ’s high quality alphanumeric text, barcodes and 2D matrix codes can also strongly adhere to a variety of porous and non-porous packaging surfaces. Laser printers are also capable of delivering high speed and highquality codes onto multiple substrates. The technology produces durable, indelible serial numbers and matrix graphics onto the different packaging types. Laser printers are not only suitable for delivering the necessary FMD coding requirements, but they are also a more sustainable alternative as they require no inks or solvents, reducing a company’s overall carbon footprint.
Looking ahead Daniel Tedham urges industry leaders to look beyond short-term compliance requirements and think about adapting to legislative developments. This will not only open the door for greater supply chain efficiencies but enable pharmaceutical companies to react faster when faced with new legislation. He underlines, “Integrating aggregation will allow businesses to realise the full benefits of serialisation and deal with any likely future amends to regulations. The more palpable benefits of aggregation are seen in logistical operations businesses throughout the supply chain can scan pallet barcodes and ascertain its contents, speeding up the supply chain and avoiding time-consuming manual unpacking and checking processes. “By having full traceability and greater visibility throughout the supply chain, aggregation enables full inventory management control and an efficient product recall system, should an adverse event occur.” Compliance with the FMD is just the first step, according to JeanMarie Aulnette: “Through the new digital networks created, fundamental processes can be transformed through digitalisation – creating supply chain insights, efficiencies, new processes and new services. The opportunities associated with serialisation include the issuance of supply chain-wide digital recall notifications and the launch of engagement programs that enable patients to interact with real-time product information based on the uniquely identifiable products.” He concludes: “The pharma supply chain will soon have the foundations in place for a digital transformation that will revolutionise the industry.”
COATINGS INSPIRED BY NATURE New research from Virginia Tech aims to cut down on waste – and consumer frustration – with a novel approach to creating super slippery industrial packaging. The study, which was published in Scientific Reports and has yielded a provisional patent, establishes a method for wicking chemically compatible vegetable oils into the surfaces of common extruded plastics. Libby White spoke with study co-author Dr Jonathan Boreyko, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics, who leads the Nature-Inspired Fluids & Interfaces Lab at Virginia Tech. To design innovative materials and systems, they take inspiration from nature’s design for animals, plants, and the weather.
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he technique helps sticky foods release from their packaging much more easily, but for the first time, it can also be applied to inexpensive and readily available plastics such as polyethylene and polypropylene. These hydrocarbon-based polymers make up 55 per cent of the total demand for plastics in the world today, meaning potential applications for the research stretch far beyond just ketchup packets. They’re also among the easiest plastics to recycle. “Previous SLIPS, or slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces, have been made using silicon- or fluorine-based polymers, which are very expensive,” says Ranit Mukherjee, a doctoral student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics within the College of Engineering
and the study’s lead author. “But we can make our SLIPS out of these hydrocarbon-based polymers, which are widely applicable to everyday packaged products.” First created by Harvard University researchers in 2011, SLIPS are porous surfaces or absorbent polymers that can hold a chemically compatible oil within their surfaces via the process of wicking. These surfaces are not only very slippery, but they’re also self-cleaning, self-healing, and more durable than traditional superhydrophobic surfaces. In order for SLIPS to hold these oils, the surfaces must have some sort of nano- or micro-roughness, which keeps the oil in place by way of surface tension. This roughness can be achieved two ways: the surface material is Packaging Europe | 37 |
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Dry Film
Infused Film
roughened with a type of applied coating, or the surface material consists of an absorbent polymer. In the latter case, the molecular structure of the material itself exhibits the necessary nano-roughness. Both techniques have recently gained traction with startups and in limited commercial applications. But current SLIPS that use silicone- and fluorine-based absorbent polymers aren’t attractive for industrial applications due to their high cost, while the method of adding roughness to surfaces can likewise be an expensive and complicated process. “We had two big breakthroughs,” says Jonathan Boreyko, “Not only are we using these hydrocarbon-based polymers that are cheap and in high demand, but we don’t have to add any surface roughness, either. We actually found oils that are naturally compatible with the plastics, so these oils are wicking into the plastic itself, not into a roughness we have to apply.” In addition to minimising food waste, Boreyko cites other benefits to the improved design, including consumer safety and comfort.
eponymous shape have a slippery ring, created by a secreted liquid, around the periphery of the cavity. When the insects move onto this slippery ring, they slide into the belly of the plants. “This slippery periphery on the pitcher plant actually inspired our SLIPS product,” shares Mukherjee. The pitcher plant’s innovation – which engineers are now copying – is the combination of a lubricant with some type of surface roughness that can lock that lubricant into place very stably with surface tension. “We’re taking that same concept, but the roughness we’re using is just a common attribute of everyday plastics, which means maximal practicality,” comments Boreyko. “We aim to look with a keen eye at the world around us to take inspiration in order to solve our current problems.” The research was fully funded through an industrial collaboration with Bemis North America. Additional co-authors of the study include Mohammad Habibi, a Virginia Tech mechanical engineering graduate student; Ziad Rashed, an engineering science and mechanics 2018 graduate from Virginia Tech’s undergraduate program; and Otacilio Berbert and Xiangke Shi, both of Bemis North America. In collaboration with Bemis, they are looking to find the best match to put this solution into application. “It is a ‘Goldilocks’ problem – you have to find just the right size or type of packaging that is best suited,” enthuses Boreyko. “With small packaging, such as ketchup sachets, consumers apply enough physical pressure themselves to squeeze out the product, so slippery coatings aren’t vital. On the other hand if the pouch is too big, gravity does the work as it dominates the surface forces. We are looking for the ‘Goldilocks’ middle ground where the packaging is the right size for this solution to add benefit and provide strong appeal to get the product out faster and more efficiently.” There are currently three companies testing with Bemis in order to discover the best route forward to licence the technology. Currently, it has a provisional patent and is looking for the perfect niche before achieving commercial translation.
Benefits of an empty package “We tested film pouches for ketchup,” Jonathan Boreyko shares. “Those without our coating still had ketchup stuck to the packaging after one minute of draining. The exact same pouch with our modification was almost completely clean after 30 seconds. “Not only does it drain faster, there is also less residue adhering to the film. This is especially attractive if you consider the recent push in designing recyclable materials. Less food waste clinging to the packaging means it will be easier to recycle as minimal waste adheres to the material. It provides three different motivators in one: you can save time, cost, and the environment.” The solution is also durable according to Boreyko, who points to other tests they have conducted. “We filled a pouch with yoghurt and stored it for a month under refrigerated conditions. It remained with the same drainage flow compared to a pouch that had been freshly infused with the oil. Crucially, it also only takes around one gram of the oil for every metre squared of packaging. This is an incredibly tiny amount needed so it is extremely cost effective. “We’re not adding any mystery nanoparticles to the surfaces of these plastics that could make people uncomfortable,” he says. “We use natural oils like cottonseed oil, so there are no health concerns whatsoever. There’s no fancy recipe required.” While the method has obvious implications for industrial food and product packaging, it could also find widespread use in the pharmaceutical industry. The oil-infused plastic surfaces are naturally anti-fouling, meaning they resist bacterial adhesion and growth. Although the technique may sound very high-tech, it actually finds its roots in the pitcher plant, a carnivorous plant that entices insects to the edge of a deep cavity filled with nectar and digestive enzymes. The leaves that form the plant’s
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PAPER IN TIGERISH MOOD The need to move away from linear economy models is focusing minds in the paper innovation on new opportunities for recyclable barrier papers. Dr Dieter Becker, director CSR & new business development, at Mitsubishi HiTec Paper Europe GmbH, surveys the industry outlook.
How has the paper industry viewed the debate about plastic waste over the last year or so?
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his topic has haunted the paper and board industry already quite a while. We consider these challenges as a huge opportunity to increase market share with barrier coated fibre-based products.
Where are the opportunities for fibre-based packaging to replace plastics? In broad terms there are many opportunities to partially replace non-recyclable polyethylene coated or multi-layer laminated flexible packaging material with modified and fully recyclable fibre-based materials. These steps offer alternatives to heat-sealability and functional barriers against water, water vapour and grease, as well as effective gas barriers against oxygen and volatile mineral oils.
What are the limitations of paper – and to what extent can innovation overcome these? Plastic foils and laminates are traditional products in the market and the production machines are well adjusted to those materials. Paper products do have their own fingerprint and production machines sometimes need to be adjusted when the production cycle rate is at the high end. Plastic foils are very flexible and smooth while papers are more stiff and brittle. Machines will be adjusted to barrier papers and barrier papers using more and more renewable and better suited raw materials to achieve similar properties. Surface evenness will be improved via curtain coating application which can achieve film like surfaces.
Could you discuss the different types of coating that can be added to papers to add barrier properties? Theoretically, papers or board do have the capability to use special fibres or adsorbers to achieve barrier properties already in the web. Specialised functional coatings with different technologies like bar, air knife or curtain coating can apply aqueous based coating recipes using a wide range of different materials, like natural waxes or dispersions. Different barrier properties can be adjusted with the right choice of water-based barrier materials and their combinations.
How does adding a functional barrier to paper impact on its recyclability or compostability? Water based barrier coated papers do normally show a full recyclability. Most of the barrier papers are almost 100 per cent recyclable. The amount of renewable materials will be steadily increased.
In which applications do you expect to see paper capture market share from plastics? Paper with functional barriers could capture market share in the fields of wrapping papers, pouches, sachets like sugar sticks, straws, bags, chocolate, dry and fatty food stuffs and in a lot more possible applications. Challenging will be applications, in which the packaging has to withstand a positive pressure over a longer period. Packaging Europe | 41 |
THE RESURGENCE OF A CLASSIC MATERIAL 2018 was an eventful year in packaging, with pressure in some quarters to reassess the claims of traditional materials. Elisabeth Skoda speaks with three major European glass packaging manufacturers, who describe their product as a timeless material with the ability to cater for twenty-first century market needs.
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hrases that recur when talking to glass manufacturers is that their product is natural, safe, infinitely recyclability and environmentally friendly. Marie-Laure Susset, global marketing communications leader at O-I, lists four main benefits of glass as a packaging material in the areas of health, the environment, a premium experience and taste. With glass being pure and impermeable, it can help keep food and beverages fresh. It also does not interact with the product it contains. It is easy to clean, sterilise and re-use. “Glass containers are the only food contact material that is ‘Generally Recognised as Safe’ by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” she points out. From an environmental point of view, she underlines that glass is made from three natural, readily available ingredients: sand, limestone and soda ash. “A glass bottle can go from the recycling bin back to the store shelf in as little as 30 days. Earlier this year, O-I achieved a Cradle to Cradle certification for 90 per cent of its worldwide operations,” she adds. Glass creates emotional connections with consumers through offering a multisensory experience. It is the only packaging material that people are inspired to save, reuse, repurpose, collect and display, she claims: “Because of its flexibility in shapes, colours and decoration, glass also offers brands a broad range of options to differentiate themselves and offer unique, premium experiences to | 42 | Packaging Europe
their consumers.” Indeed, a consumer survey by The European Glass Federation FEVE found that 85 per cent of Europeans said they preferred glass over all other packaging materials. Finally, Marie-Laure Susset highlights the taste experience glass offers. “Glass is all about the taste buds. Because it is odourless and flavourless, and does not interact with the product inside, it preserves and presents the flavour of a product exactly as intended.”
Glass and the war on plastics With public focus currently firmly on plastic waste, the question arises whether this has positively impacted on the demand for glass. Chris Todd, product innovation manager at Allied Glass, has seen increased demand for glass but thinks that this goes beyond the plastics debate. “Allied Glass produce glass containers primarily for the premium spirits sector, which itself is in a state of growth. I have noticed however that due to its premium values and recyclability, companies like Coca-Cola have started using and promoting glass in their advertising. When people are substituting plastic containers, they are doing so with glass. There are numerous articles reporting the rise in popularity of the almost extinct milkman as people try to make a difference. These are all proof that glass is the material of choice for boosting environmental credentials.”
Sharon Todd, head of marketing at Ardagh Glass Europe, highlights the emergence of ‘plastic-free’ options and concepts. “There are a few initiatives such as the plastic-free zones recently created and supplied by A Plastic Planet,” she says. “These have been reportedly received positively by consumers, and glass can play an important role in this.” Marie-Laure Susset has also observed a renewed interest in glass that is confirmed by Euromonitor data. “2016 marked an inflection point for glass growth globally - glass stopped declining and started growing again,” she reveals. “In western Europe we even expect glass growth to modestly outpace total packaging growth in the next few years. Sustainability is one of the three market trends (along with premiumisation and health / wellness) to which O-I believes glass can offer an appealing answer.”
Innovation A major development by Allied Glass inspired by the plastics debate, presented at Luxe Pack last year, were the Sea Creatures collection bottles, which combine glass form and elaborate printing to create a sophisticated decorative technique with visual and tactile effects. Another major innovation for Allied Glass last year was the production of charcoal coloured glass in the main furnace, rather than adding colour after the furnace into the forehearth which is typical in the industry. “Producing in the main furnace allowed us to produce this colour using 80 per cent recycled content,” Chris Todd says, “saving raw materials, energy and reducing CO2 emissions.” Perhaps Ardagh’s most significant recent innovation is its sculptural embossing technology, which provides exciting opportunities for brand owners to enhance their glass packaging design with an unprecedented level of intricate detail on multiple levels, giving designs a life-like quality. However, boosting sustainability is another key point, as Sharon Todd highlights: “In terms of process, we continue to drive growth in our industry-leading cullet usage and have targeted additional investments to enhance energy efficiency and further improve sustainability performance. A good example is our award-winning sustainable battery storage solution, which provides a reliable source of green energy, and is transforming the way energy is managed at our glass plant in Irvine, Scotland.” As reported previously in Packaging Europe, for O-I the big innovation of 2018 was O-I : EXPRESSIONS, a solution providing game-changing opportunities.
“This is a new, late-stage differentiation service that combines the integral benefits of glass with an agile, marketing-focused capability,” Marie-Laure Susset explains. “This innovation makes glass more relevant to more customers by offering an unprecedentedly easy and quick access to customisation and personalisation for glass packaging, enabling them to respond to consumer demand for ‘made for me’ yet environmentally friendly products. The O-I : EXPRESSIONS RELIEF service, offering digitally printed and coloured embossing has created a real wow effect and has been qualified as breakthrough by many customers.”
Focus on resource efficiency Both Sharon Todd and Marie-Laure Susset underline lightweighting as the way forward. “Glass remains extremely well-placed to meet brand owners’ needs and has a bright future. Lightweighting has delivered significant benefits over many years and continues to be a focus,” says Sharon Todd. “An example of lightweighting can be found in O-I’s recently published CSR report update: Adnams, a brewer based in Southwold, UK, wanted to reduce the weight of their bottle,” Marie-Laure Susset adds. “O-I’s team collaborated with Adnams to produce a lighter weight yet still embossed, branded beer bottle. O-I was able to take 19g off the brand’s market leading bottle, removing 115 tonnes from the glass waste stream annually. This lighter weight bottle has now become the standard weight for the majority of the 500ml ale beer bottles produced at O-I’s Harlow plant.” She also highlights the role innovation has played across the industry as a whole: “As an industry, in the past decade alone, we have made significant investments in upgrading glass plants to be more environmentally friendly, as well cutting our CO2 emissions by 70 per cent. We have also managed to make glass bottles 30 per cent lighter than they were two decades ago, without sacrificing product preservation, recyclability or design.” Despite all the innovation, the industry seems to understand that public affection for glass is rooted in ageless characteristics that respond to some of the core desires of today’s consumers. “Glass is 100 per cent recyclable, inert, safe, fits well within the circular economy model,” Chris Todd concludes. “Yes, it is heavy and might break if dropped, but it is a material that is used to present a positive, responsible image by our customers and consumers.”
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SMURFIT KAPPA BETTER PLANET PACKAGING DESIGN CHALLENGE 2019 The toll that plastic waste is taking on the environment is one of the biggest challenges facing our generation. This is a problem that needs to be solved, requiring a global response, with the brightest minds in design and business working together, finding solutions to packaging waste through innovation, collaboration and partnerships.
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murfit Kappa believes that it has a role to play in building a better future for the planet. That is why it has launched The Better Planet Packaging Initiative with the goal of reimagining and redefining the future of sustainable packaging as we know it. Packaging plays a valuable role in preventing product waste and through the initiative Smurfit Kappa will use its strength in innovation to develop new products, collaborate with new and existing partners and undertake research to address the challenges caused by packaging waste. As part of the initiative the company is launching the Smurfit Kappa Better Planet Packaging Design Challenge, the first of many projects planned for the coming months and years to start conversations and stimulate new thinking around sustainable packaging.
Challenging You The Design Challenge is open to designers, engineers, inventors and creative thinkers. Smurfit Kappa has set two specific challenges, and submissions are welcome for either, or indeed both. The objective of each is to find innovative paper-based alternatives to everyday non-biodegradable packaging.
Design Challenge 1: To develop an alternative solution to avoid plastic stretch wrap around pallets (stack of boxes) to provide stability during transport and storage. Today when products are placed on a pallet they are wrapped with plastic stretch wrap for stability during transport and storage. It is an efficient and costeffective solution, but it creates waste, which potentially can end up as litter, or is not recyclable (incinerated). The challenge is to find a paper-based solution that is recyclable or reusable in the same collection system as paper-based packaging while still delivering the same properties for stack of boxes.
Design Challenge 2: To develop a fully paper-based parcel with thermal protection for chocolate (as an example of temperature sensitive product) for use in the e-commerce sales channel. Temperature sensitive products need to be packaged in a way that enables temperature control, e.g. keeping the temperature low through transport (approximately six hours). Current solutions are in most cases made with multiple materials, such as EPS or cool packs, which makes the final parcel difficult to recycle for consumers. The challenge is to find a sustainable solution that will deliver the required temperature control but is renewable and kerbside recyclable in the paper recycling system, ideally using wood fibre. Concepts can use various types, shapes and forms of paper-based materials – think of paper, corrugated, carton, honeycomb or pulp.
The Prize Entries will be judged by an international panel of senior packaging experts from across Smurfit Kappa’s business including paper, corrugated, recycling and sustainability. The winning designers for each challenge will receive a prize of €8000 and the winning packaging concepts will be showcased at Smurfit Kappa’s Innovation event on 16th May 2019.
Register Today To take part in the competition all participants must first register at smurfitkappa.com/designchallenge. The deadline for design submissions is 29th March 2019. Packaging Europe | 45 |
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Michael Ruchty
GLIMPSING THE FUTURE OF INTRALOGISTICS
Major intralogistics trade show LogiMAT takes place in Stuttgart on 19-21 February 2019. Elisabeth Skoda catches up with LogiMAT’s project director Michael Ruchty to find out more about what to expect in the industry in 2019. What would you identify as the major trends in the intralogistics industry?
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the area of material handling, there was a particular focus on widening the portfolio in the area of assisted driving systems and thus improving the safety of vehicle operators. There is an ongoing discussion about alternative energy use in the sector. With new developments in the area of shuttle technology and conveyor technology, manufacturers have further increased the efficiency of fully automated systems. In parallel, driverless vehicles are increasingly used to bridge distances within a production site. In the area of packaging technology, the development of sustainable outer packaging has been accelerated, and moreover, the implementation of closedloop systems with reusable containers is also growing. Software developers have started to automate functional computing processes with the integration of methods and procedures of artificial intelligence (AI) into various systems. In all areas of intralogistics, the shortage of skilled workers for companies remains an unpredictable factor.
What are the next steps in the area of automation, robotics, driverless vehicles and Virtual Reality? It is safe to assume that we will see further development in the area of driverless vehicles, both in terms of operational applications and ‘swarm intelligence’. Rapid developments in the areas of sensor technology, image acquisition and processing will also have a strong influence on order picking. AGV-supported robots will be able to handle crates and increase the flexibility for the design of processes and warehouse layouts. Behind the
scenes, IT plays a decisive role. With new algorithms and increased computing power, AI will increasingly shape the processes of IT itself as well as the processes of operations. It will enable further automation and relieve the strain on employees.
How can we ensure data security in an increasingly connected world? The development of appropriate security systems and security measures predominantly concerns the area of superimposed ERP systems and the operators of computer centres. A big topic with security and cryptography experts currently is the potential danger around quantum computers. With the foreseeable further development of AI applications, however, additional encryption algorithms will enable new types of crytographies. Companies should make sure to address the issue of crypto-agility. It allows algorithms to be used in such a way that they can be exchanged quickly if necessary.
Are there any interesting new product developments at LogiMAT you would like to highlight? Visitors will be able to discover a wide range of developments on standard solutions as well as new innovations in the different exhibition halls, ranging from packaging to material handling, conveying and storage technologies to software solutions. It’s this variety that makes LogiMAT so interesting for visitors with a variety of industry expertise. We have already had around 130 pre-announcements of new developments, so it should be a very interesting show. Packaging Europe | 47 |
CORONA LAUNCHES BIO-BASED SIX-PACK RINGS Another major beer brand has innovated to replace plastic aggregation rings in its packaging portfolio. Earlier this year Carlsberg announced its novel use of adhesives to glue cans together with the new Snap Pack. Now the Mexican brand Corona has unveiled its alternative approach: becoming the first global beer brand to use an aggregator made from plant-based biodegradable fibres, with a mix of by-product waste and compostable materials. If left in the environment, the new rings will break down into organic material, thus eliminating the risk associated with unrecycled polyethylene six-pack rings of lingering in the natural environment and photodegrading into microplastics. The bio-based rings will be piloted initially in Mexico.
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he initiative is Corona’s substantive contribution to the brand’s commitment with Parley for the Oceans to lead the industry with eco-friendly packaging. The partnership between Corona (a brand owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev) and Parley began with a commitment to protect 100 islands by 2020 and expands to include the pursuit of scalable innovation that can change the status quo. Recognising the need to confront plastic pollution | 48 | Packaging Europe
on multiple fronts, as roughly 8 MM metric tons of plastic entering the ocean each year, Corona has adopted Parley’s A.I.R. strategy to not only ‘avoid’ and ‘intercept’ plastic as much as possible, but also help ‘redesign’ solutions that use the material. “We work with the best minds in the industry, both internal and external to create the technology platforms of the future,” Keenan Thompson, global director
of innovation packaging at Anheuser-Busch, told Packaging Europe. “The brief for this project is simple: perform the job at hand but don’t use plastic. Beer is one of the more complicated products to create packaging for in the beverage industry – our bottles and cans need to sustain high pressures of pasteurisation and extreme weather temperatures whilst keeping oxygen out of the container. Secondary Packaging needs to be robust so that it can handle the rigours of distribution, retailer shelving and consumer transport and storage – these environments are often hot, cold, wet, dry, humid, and full of condensation. Any replacement for plastic rings has to be able to handle all of this whilst still being desirable to the consumer and relevant for the Corona brand.” The innovation is a product of the brand owner’s Global Innovation Technology Centre (GITEC). Commenting on the R&D challenge, Keenan continued: “As with any project brief, GITEC starts by scanning internal and external existing solutions. We work in an agile way through a series of design steps to define objectives, assumptions and constraints, make connections and invent where needed, test our hypothesis and pilot quickly to understand, learn, and pivot where necessary. Things that seem simple, rarely are, therefore for any innovation to hit a market at scale, all stakeholders in the value chain need to have some sort of benefit coming from the idea, or at least stay neutral – from the raw materials all the way the consumer.” The bio-based rings will be piloted in Tulum, Mexico, at the beginning of 2019, with further tests in the UK planned later in the year. Corona has stated that the initial pilot will encompass over one million cans. “The beach is an important part of Corona’s DNA and we have been working with Parley to address the issue on the frontlines where plastic is physically accumulating,” commented Evan Ellman, Corona Better World director. “We also recognise the influence a global brand like Corona can have on the industry, and with the support of Parley, are pursuing scalable solutions like plastic-free six pack rings that can become a new standard to avoid plastic for good.”
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Jocelyne Ehret
ON SECOND THOUGHTS...
ARE YOU INCLUSIVE OR EXCLUSIVE?
2018 was packaging’s year of living dangerously – especially for plastics. But the extent to which packaging universally serves all consumers is the silent shadow of this debate. In the first edition of our new guest column in which packaging experts challenge widely held thinking, Jocelyne Ehret of TheRightPackaging.com invites us to have second thoughts about SUPs and accessibility.
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the attack on the use of certain plastics has positive effects, it also has perverse effects that we should observe medium-term. At first glance, this conflict has prompted ‘responsible’ innovation, based on eco-design, and use of raw materials that are easily recyclable or compostable. It has also made it clear that it was critical to minimise sales or transport packaging and eliminate wasted space and unnecessary packaging without added value. But when you take a closer look, this fight within the packaging family also generates sly effects, especially when it pushes consumers into a rhetorical corner, and going so far as to ban useful packaging because it is no longer seen as protection, but rather as pollution. I propose we have second thoughts about this, and take the time to consider some unintended consequences. Among the potential negative side-effects, what about accessibility of products for people who are blind or visually impaired, with motricity or proprioception problems, or illnesses that reduce manual abilities, whatever they are aged or not? Indeed, most solutions for them involve packaging, whether this improves the readability of information, convenient formats that guarantee a more appropriate weight, or are easy to open and close. If there is no packaging, what do they do? Everyone deserves a voice. In addition, there are potential health impacts on all consumers. For instance, offering bulk for food may seem a good idea, and to be frank, this way of selling products has existed for ages in our city and village
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markets. However, if we apply this system to supermarkets, we should keep an eye on its corollaries: contamination of products (from refilling of distributors or consumers serving themselves with their hands), and spillage on the ground attracting pests in stores or warehouses. For the moment, there are not enough sales outlets involved to have a sufficient view of the likely consequences. This is an area to watch in the next future. Secondly, reusable cup or packaging for food and beverages. Although it is not frequent in Europe yet, in Australia it is commonplace to come with one’s own reusable coffee cup and ask for a ‘re-filled’ at the service station or elsewhere. However, some food service chains have recently stopped this system due to the poor hygiene of some customers’ cups. What are the legal implications and where do the legal responsibilities lie? If I go to the butcher with my own container and then fall sick after eating my steak, who will be accountable? Moreover, in countries where fresh water resource is vital, is it better to use water to quench one’s thirst than to clean one’s packaging? How do we navigate our way through this maze? Should we promote an inclusive packaging that serves everyone, a kind of omni-pack for all humans that priorities health and wellbeing, or should we eliminate single-use packaging in favour of a more exclusive approach, which may also lead to over contamination and waste? This is not a simple question and it deserves to be debated.