Packaging World November 2021

IMPROVING EFFICIENCY

FOR YOUR OPERATION. westrock.com/ automation

NOV2021 packworld.com

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BIC’s Move to Paper Shaves Plastic Use 30

Emerging Cookie Brand Navigates Pandemic 42

Servos, Pneumatics Team Up for ‘Breakpacks’ 44

Sausages Pioneer Compostable Films 48

Chemically Recycled PP Gets Big Brand Buy-in 52

Syrup Filling & Capping Line Avoids Sticky Situation

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10/22/21 5:42 AM

REPACKAGING THE FUTURE ONE INNOVATION AT A TIME

From engineered fiber-based primary, secondary and tertiary packaging, to automation that optimizes your supply chain, our innovations are reshaping the future of packaging and enabling you to meet your operational goals without compromising productivity.

SUSTAINABLE. AUTOMATED. CONNECTED. westrock.com/automated

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©2021 WestRock Company. All rights reserved.

9/23/21 3:54 PM

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10/14/21 5:28 PM

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FEATURES 24 PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO, a Huge Success The industry reunited in September for the most important packaging and processing event in memory. If you weren’t able to make it, find out what you missed.

30 EMERGING BRANDS Real Treat Cookies Cater to Adult Tastes and Niche Market Sales This specialty cookie brand is using Instagramable package design and organic ingredients to position itself as a premier ‘Top Shelf’ treat while finding unique channels to grow market share beyond retail.

New sustainability goals around its use of plastic drive BIC to look at new options for products and packaging, including a switch to paper from plastic for some of its razor brands.

36 COVER STORY BIC Transforms its Approach to Plastic Products & Packaging New sustainability goals around its use of plastic drive BIC to look at new options for products and packaging, including a greater use of recycled materials, a move from plastic to paperboard, and refillable and reusable alternatives.

30

42 AUTOMATION Bringing Flexibility to Breakpack Production Advanced controls let this maker of banding equipment bring a whole new level of quick-change flexibility to manufacturers delivering ‘breakpacks’ to their retailer customers.

44 Breakthrough in Compostable Film Management at this family-owned third-generation producer of classic British sausages is hoping its efforts on the sustainable packaging front will be copied globally.

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48 RTD Coffee Package Uses 30% Chemically Recycled PP International dairy products company Emmi transitions to packaging with 30% rPP from chemical recycling for its Caffè Latte line of RTD iced coffee drinks in the U.K., becoming the first in the category to do so.

52 Syrup Capper, Reject System Prevents a Sticky Situation Quebecois syrup producer Nokomis Maple Products had a big fill inconsistency and reject problem that often made a sticky mess. An easy-to-use new capper with advanced inspection features made a big difference in reducing rejects and keeping things moving.

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10/21/21 4:03 PM

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9/30/21 5:57 AM

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DEPARTMENTS 8

packworld.com VIDEO

COLUMNS

7 18 20 22 54 56

Syrup Bottle Inspection, Rejection System in Action

Lead Off The Legal Side The Big Picture Sustainable Packaging Shelf Impact!

Professional Perspective

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VIDEO

NEWS/EVENTS

Unique Controls Stack for ‘Breakpacks’

8 News 14 Quotables/By the Numbers 22

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INTERVIEW

16 First Person PRODUCTS

VIDEO

55 Technology

Women’s Leadership Network Panel: A New Way of Working

ADVERTISING

55 Advertiser Index

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Aladin Alkhawam Director, Packaging Operations, Par Pharmaceutical

VIDEO

Jan Brücklmeier Technical Application Group Packaging Technology Expert, Nestlé

Paul Schaum Chief Operations Officer, Pretzels Inc.

BIC Brand’s Packaging Sustainability Mission

David Smith, PhD Principal, David S. Smith & Associates

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Patrick Keenan R&D Packaging Engineer, General Mills/Annie’s Organic Snacks Mike Marcinkowski Global R&D Officer, GPA Global & Hub Folding Box Co.

Brian Stepowany Packaging R&D, Senior Manager, B&G Foods, Inc. Jasmine Sutherland President, Texas Food Solutions; Vice President, Perfect Fit Meals

Connect with a Leaders in Packaging supplier and support packaging education!

Connect with us:

www.packworld.com/leaders

Packaging World® (ISSN # 1073-7367) is a registered trademark of PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. Packaging World® is published monthly by PMMI with its publishing office, PMMI Media Group, located at 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611; 312.222.1010; Fax: 312.222.1310. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2021 by PMMI. All rights reserved. Materials in this publication must not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Applications for a free subscription may be made online at www.packworld.com/subscribe. Paid subscription rates per year are $200 in the U.S., $285 Canada and Mexico by surface mail; $475 Europe, $715 Far East and Australia by air mail. Single copy price in U.S. is $20. To subscribe or manage your subscription to Packaging World, visit Packworld.com/subscribe. Free digital edition available to qualified individuals outside the United States. POSTMASTER; Send address changes to Packaging World®, 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611. PRINTED IN USA by Quad. The opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of PMMI. Comments, questions and letters to the editor are welcome and can be sent to: editors@packworld.com. Mailing List: We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable firms. If you would prefer that we don’t include your name, please write us at the Chicago, IL address.

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10/21/21 4:03 PM

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10/16/21 11:10 AM

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EDITORIAL Matt Reynolds Editor Patrick Reynolds Vice President, Editor Emeritus @Packcentric Iris Zavala Managing Editor Anne Marie Mohan Senior Editor @PackagingTrends Jim Chrzan Vice President, Content and Brand Strategy Kim Overstreet Senior Content Strategist, Alignment Sterling Anthony, Eric F. Greenberg, Ben Miyares Contributing Editors

ART David Bacho Creative Director

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ADVERTISING Wendy Sawtell Vice President, Sales • wsawtell@pmmimediagroup.com Lara Krieger Production Manager • lkrieger@pmmimediagroup.com Kelly Greeby Senior Director, Client Success & Media Operations Alicia Pettigrew Director, Product Strategy

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10/19/21 6:00 AM

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LEAD OFF

HORIZONTAL

Cannabis Comes Of Age Packaging automation has advanced quickly in recent years with quite a few OEMs now offering smaller, slower machines targeted to this market.

In materials, the sustainability wave is just starting to swell.

I found that out when I visited MJBizCon in Las Vegas a few weeks back, five years since my last visit. Wow! The industry has not only grown, it’s grown more sophisticated. “There’s a lot of money walking around here,” said one machinery exhibitor.

From a packaging journalist’s perspective, 80% of the show is not related to packaging materials or machinery. But instead of booths selling safes, vaults, razor wire, and guard dogs (my experience five years ago), there are booths for managing IPOs, insurance, process ERP software, etc.

You still have your crop science, lighting, and irrigation booths, of course. And a lot of vendors offering “turnkey solutions, from start to finish.”

This is a maturing, complex industry for sure. And, as predicted by GTI’s Greg Flickinger last Fall during PACK EXPO Connects, there are now major packaging OEMs displaying noticeably smaller footprint machines, with speeds more in line with cannabis operations. Some attendees still can experience sticker shock, apparently, and many machinery exhibitors talk leasing and financing, although I did not hear anyone use the term MAS (Machinery As a Service).

Sustainability, a major buzz during PACK EXPO Las Vegas in late September, has yet to break big in cannabis. But you can hear rumblings. A few container booths mentioned sustainability in booth graphics, but real options were few and far between (hemp paper cartons with a great retro feel) and informational brochures could not be produced when requested. They’re just not quite there yet. One supplier noted, “a few people are asking [about sustainable packaging] until they see the prices.”

I spoke on packaging and branding to a decent-sized As seen at MJBizCon 2021. audience at 4:00 in the afternoon on the second day of the show.

These 80 or 90 people clearly validated my observations. The vast majority of audience members who met me later during “office hours” (a cool concept that eliminates all that post-presentation milling about in the meeting room) asked about more sustainable materials.

There was a very healthy and well-attended conference program. I was the only packaging speaker and my prediction is next year’s agenda features more discussions on sustainability, both in packaging materials and operations (growers have intense lighting needs and use a lot of water).

I attended a great session on the future of cannabis marketing with Lisa Buffo, Founder and CEO at Cannabis Marketing Association. According to Buffo’s stats, the cannabis industry sold $20.3 billion in 2020. These sales came from 44.6 million cannabis users. She mentioned there are far more consumers in the 18 adult-use states (145 million) who DO NOT partake, currently. And there are another 235 million American consumers in the 38 medical-use states.

Buffo pointed out that educating and converting even a small percentage of the non-cannabis users to customers would be better for the industry than stealing current market share from existing competitors. She also reinforced the importance of strategic partnerships with non-cannabis lifestyle brands to aid the effort. (Colorado cannabis companies joined non-cannabis brands capitalizing on MLB’s All-Star game). These partnerships help to legitimize cannabis companies in the community.

To finish, Buffo quoted author and marketing blogger Seth Godin, who said, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make but the stories that you tell.”

This was a perfect segue to a portion of my presentation about the connected package. No single carton or label could possibly contain everything the consumer wants to know about the company to inspire their brand loyalty. This is especially true considering all the space regulatory compliance messaging requires. That’s where smart packaging comes in.

Next up for these types of emerging controlled substance markets? You won’t believe it. I heard not one but two casual conversations about microdosing psychedelics—both mushrooms and LSD—to treat depression and PTSD. One attendee told me, “I can treat PTSD with cannabis, I can cure it with jchrzan@pmmimediagroup.com psychedelics.” Stay tuned? PW

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10/22/21 10:26 AM

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NEWS

Top Five Trends in Spirits and Wine in 2021/22 15% of global consumers stated that novel/unusual flavors were opted for Disruptions in supply chains, crop damage resulting from climate change, in alcoholic drinks, positioning this as more of an emerging trend.” and a shift in consumer attitudes toward drinking are set to shape new 3. Better-for-you wine: “Consumers are increasingly demanding sustrends and consumption habits in spirits and wine over the coming years, tainable and healthier alternatives to traditional products, and often this supporting steady growth. That’s according to GlobalData, which says it is achieved via certifications such as organic,” Inglis says. “Regarding wine, expects the market to increase at a CAGR of 1.2% by 2026. this refers to organic, biodynamic, or sustainable, Says Holly Inglis, Beverages Analyst at GlobalDaall of which have their own certification boards and ta, “Health consciousness and sustainability, sprinregulations. GlobalData’s Q3-21 survey reveals that kled with a pinch of indulgence, are set to drive 55% and 40% of global consumers find natural and many innovations this year, as consumers look for organic claims to be very appealing, respectively. In products that align with their personal values withChile, the Miguel Torres Las Mulas brand launched out compromising on taste. In GlobalData’s Q2-21 an organic sparkling wine, appealing to eco-conconsumer survey, 34% of global consumers stated scious consumers, though launches of this nature they find sustainably/ethically sourced ingredients also connote a premium.” very appealing, highlighting an innovation oppor4. Hard tea: “Following the immense success tunity for beverage producers.” of hard seltzers, manufacturers are now looking to According to Inglis, five trends will shape the new cross-category innovations,” Inglis explains. spirits and wine sector over 2021/2022.

“Hard tea leverages a popular non-alcoholic bev1. Low/No ABV [alcohol by volume]: “Already erage choice—with a twist. Producers are able to established in the beer sector, low or no ABV are combine novel alcoholic blends with a tea base to now taking shape in spirits and wine,” Inglis says. create a unique offering, which is likely to appeal “Although hard seltzers benefited from this trend to younger consumers. Take Bully Boy’s Italian Iced recently, Boston Beer reported that hard seltzer Tea brand, which combines Aperol [an Italian bitgrowth diminished, meaning the company had to ters apéritif] spritz tastes with iced/RTD tea flavors, revise its full-year growth forecasts—perhaps sug- Spirits producer Amass has moved into with a 7% ABV content.” gesting a slowdown in the previously booming cate- cannabis with a THC- and CBD-infused 5. Portion-control cans: “The can format gory. That said, ‘moderation’ is still a winning trend, non-alcoholic beverage. primarily came into play as part of the on-the-go as consumers look for lower/no-ABV variations of trend. However, since the pandemic and subsequent slowdown of many their favorite drinks. Innovations witnessed so far in 2021 have includpeople’s lives, canned wines and spirits have co-opted a different space— ed Street Hard Seltzer in Russia, Desperado’s virgin 0.0% mojito beer in that of portion control. Cans provide an accessible and affordable way to France, and Svami Zero Proof non-alcoholic pink gin and tonic in India.” both count calories and consumption of alcohol units,” Inglis says. “In 2. CBD infusion: “Two companies have recently leveraged experiGlobalData’s Q2-21 survey, 33% of global consumers stated that they are mental and health trends in one unique launch. Spirits producer Amass actively trying to reduce their consumption of calories, with a further 38% has recently paired THC- and CBD-infused with zero-ABV spirit, highlighthighlighting they are trying to reduce sugar consumption. This denotes ing a modern take on what was once considered a taboo,” Inglis shares. not only a move away from high-ABV count, but other less-than-healthy “In Poland, CBD beer launches from Browar Miejski Gloger Sp. Z o. O have ingredients too.” —Anne Marie Mohan also been witnessed, though in GlobalData’s Q2-21 consumer survey, only

Lipman Family Farms Expands Compostable Packaging Lipman Family Farms expanded its compostable packaging line, furthering the company’s dedication to providing innovative, sustainable practices from farm to shelf. Designed for organic grape tomatoes, mini cucumbers, green beans, and mini sweet peppers under Lipman’s Grown True organic line, the packaging meets the growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products and sourcing.

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“As the demand for organic continues to rise, we’re committed to providing consumers with the freshest produce in nature through our Grown True label here at Lipman,” says Sarah Miller, General Manager at Lipman Family Farms. “We’re excited to launch new compostable packaging for our organic line to provide consumers and retailers with a 100 percent backyard compostable solution for a guilt-free purchasing experience.”

The compostable packaging is shelf-ready with a clamshell design that ensures ease in stacking and increased efficiencies in the retail space, while offering consumers a fully at-home compostable solution. Each pack features a QR code which outlines the step-by-step process on how to compost, making it easier than ever for consumers to reduce their environmental footprint in their own backyards. —Matt Reynolds

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OMAC’s Inaugural Kowal Scholarship Pays it Forward after a long bout with cancer. Kowal, OMAC, The Organization for Machine one of OMAC’s founding members, Automation and Control, recognized championed automation for more than the first recipients of a John A. Kowal two decades.

Memorial Scholarship during its “As one of the most influential General Session held at 2021’s PACK figures and vital contributor to the EXPO Las Vegas. Patrick Wojtera, an automation and packaging industries, Automation Engineering Technology John’s legacy lives on through this student at McMaster University scholarship,” says Bryan Griffen, a (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), and long-time friend and collaborator and Tyler Ebert, an Electrical Engineering director, Industry Services at PMMI. student at Ohio University, each were Stephanie Frisque, widow of John Kowal; Bryan “John was a tremendous contributor awarded a scholarship of $5,000.

Griffen, and OMAC Chairman Ron MacDonald of to the automation and packaging With the scholarship, “John’s legacy Nestlé, present one of the first John A. Kowal industries, and in particular to OMAC.” will live on through the students who Memorial Scholarships to Tyler Ebert.

Applicants for the scholarship must share his quest for knowledge and be third-or fourth-year students majoring in electrical engineering, passion for the industry,” says Stephanie Frisque, Kowal’s widow. automation, or related areas who demonstrate a commitment OMAC established the scholarship program to encourage to excellence in the industry and an interest in packaging and support the growth of careers in automation, all in honor of automation. A minimum GPA of 3.0 is required. Visit John Kowal, most recently director of Business Development at www.omac.org for more information. —Matt Reynolds B&R Industrial Automation, who passed away on July 8, 2020,

Football Stadium PET Bottles Transformed into Mr Muscle Packaging After successful partnerships with the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team and the Milwaukee Brewers (see pwgo.to/7323) MLB team to turn recycled plastic cups from events into new packaging for its Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, SC Johnson has extended its program across the pond. In February 2021, the household cleaning products company teamed up with the Liverpool Football Club in Liverpool, England, to create a closed-loop recycling model for the more than half-million plastic bottles used at the team’s Anfield Stadium each season.

The collaboration came about due to the two group’s like-mindedness around sustainability. “We’re excited to add the Liverpool Football Club to the organizations we partner with to help create a waste-free world,” says SC Johnson Chief Community and Communications Officer Alan VanderMolen. “Earlier this year, Liverpool F.C. launched the Red Way [red being the team’s official color], its vision for sustainability and way of making an impact on society now and in the future, and we thought LFC’s mission aligned with our company’s values.”

The new partnership, called Goals for Change, includes a series of initiatives to drive improvements in sustainability and health and hygiene and provide pathways to greater economic

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and social mobility for youth across Liverpool F.C.’s communities in the U.K., Asia, and Latin America. Among the initiatives is the closed-loop packaging project, which allows fans at the stadium to place their PET beverage bottles into specially designed receptacles. SC Johnson then collects the waste, which is recycled and used to create special-edition trigger bottles for Mr Muscle cleaning products in the U.K.

Read about SC Johnson’s partnership with Plastic Bank to use ocean plastics at pwgo.to/7324 According to VanderMolen, none of the costs associated with the project will be passed along to consumers. “It will cost us more to make bottles out of recycled Anfield bottles, but that’s an investment we’re making because of the good it can do,” he says.

The program is expected to collect up to 500,000 discarded PET packages. Says Matt Scammell, Commercial Director at LFC, “I feel very optimistic about the work we can do together through this partnership, both raising awareness and looking after the safety of our supporters and ultimately using our voices for good to help the next generation of Reds all around the world.” —Anne Marie Mohan

10/19/21 6:07 AM

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NEWS

Technology Excellence Awards Recognize Innovation After months of narrowing down more than 100 qualified entries, two days of on-site voting allowed PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO attendees to be the ultimate judge of the most innovative new technologies at the show.

“Congratulations to our winners and their outstanding technologies. It was a tough task to narrow down all the innovative entries that the panel received,” says Laura Thompson, Vice President, Trade Shows, PMMI. “We are proud to continue to convene the best the industry has to offer and look forward to the Technology Excellence Awards growing stronger each year.”

The 2021 Technology Excellence Award Winners include: General Packaging—Simpl-Cut®: P.E. Labellers’ latest offering, Simpl-Cut roll-fed labeler, solves two major weaknesses inherent in the design of traditional roll-fed labelers and, according to the company, has proven to offer exceptional performance and flexibility.

For decades, manufacturers of soft drinks, bottled water, and personal care products faced two main challenges to OEE: hotmelt adhesive build-up on the cutting drum and utilization of complex cutting blades that lead to intricate, lengthy changeovers. Simpl-Cut’s design features a single, dual-function vacuum drum for label cutting and transfer intended to simplify operations.

Glue is applied before the label is cut, allowing the label roll to protect the drum from glue build-up, thus reducing the number of times labelers are cleaned from two per shift to once per day.

The second benefit of the single-drum design is that cutting is achieved on the vacuum by pulling labels across fixed knives, resulting in the elimination of complex cutting blades and decreasing knife changeover time from two hours to two minutes.

Offering greater flexibility, customers can run hotmelt adhesive and pre-glued labels on the same Simpl-Cut machine. In addition, Simpl-Cut drums can be configured with up to five stations per vacuum drum, allowing customers to run new containers outside of the specified size range without sacrificing production speeds or quality.

Food and Beverage AND Personal Care/Pharmaceuticals (Winner of both categories)—CanReseal® Beverage: CanReseal from Canovation is a can-end design that adds threading just below the ubiquitous double-seam. This allows a metal closure to be screwed into the top of the can to create an air- and liquid-tight seal. Stated simply, CanReseal’s design effectively adds threads to today’s modular assortment of can body sizes and diameter options, turning commercially available beverage cans into resealable, aluminum cups.

CanReseal’s approach to resealability can be configured in multiple ways to suit the of the product application and brand requirements. With the CanReseal Ring-End (CRE™) configuration, the whole top of the can is open to allow the most utility for still and carbonated beverages. The familiar Stay-On Tab opening method for cans, universally known to consumers, is also an option to now become resealable with CanReseal (CSOT™).

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CanReseal features a design that is compatible with standard can body sizes and types. Manufacturing is the same as conventional cans, plus the closures are made using the same processes as the can lids. A strong advantage, says Canovation, is that existing manufacturers can easily convert their production lines, making rapid global scalability possible.

General Processing—HPP In-Bulk Technology: Hiperbaric In-Bulk technology is a global innovation for the high-volume processing of High Pressure Processing beverages. This range of equipment is based on a patent-pending concept in which beverages are processed in-bulk prior to bottling.

According to Hiperbaric, this new technology reduces steps, simplifying the process and offering the highest HPP operation productivity in the world, along with the lowest processing cost and lowest energy consumption. In addition, it allows for the use of any type of container after HPP processing, regardless of material, design, or size. This includes carton brick, carton bottles, glass bottles, bag-in-box, PET bottles, and more.

The design of the equipment allows it to obtain a filling efficiency of 90% of the total volume, approximately double that of in-pack technology. The process begins with liquids filling the inlet tank. After pressurization, the HPP beverage fills the outlet tank through sterilized tubes and is ready to be bottled in an ultra-clean filling line.

The Hiperbaric 525 Bulk model can reach a maximum throughput capacity of +4,000 L/h or 1,300 U.S. gal/h compared to 3,200 L/h or 900 U.S. gal/h delivered by the largest in-pack model, an increase of 30% to 40% capacity. —Anne Marie Mohan

10/19/21 6:07 AM

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10/19/21 6:07 AM

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NEWS

Registration Opens for PACK EXPO East 2022 Attendee registration for PACK EXPO East 2022 (March 21-23; Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia) is officially open according to show producer, PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

Now in its fifth edition, the three-day event comes on the heels of a successful PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO, the largest packaging and processing trade show in North America in 2021. PACK EXPO East returns to Philadelphia after a recordbreaking 2020 that featured 7,100-plus attendees and its largest show floor to date.

Its Northeast location provides a convenient and rewarding opportunity for consumer packaged goods (CPG) and life sciences companies to explore packaging and processing technologies from 40-plus vertical markets, connect with suppliers, and find the solutions needed to adapt

and compete in a changing marketplace.

Featuring 400 exhibitors, attendees get the best of both worlds—the ability to see a comprehensive range of packaging and processing technologies, yet still have time for productive, in-depth discussions with vendors to address pain points and solve challenges.

“With booth sales already tracking higher than this far out in 2020, it is evident that solution suppliers are ready and excited to showcase their latest technologies,” says Laura Thompson, VP trade shows, PMMI. “Attendees are sure to find a multitude of solutions in one easily accessible location with so much to see and do in the larger Philly area too; that’s what makes this show so unique.”

PACK EXPO East also offers plenty of free educational sessions all conveniently located on the show floor along with extensive networking opportunities. With its convenient location, PACK EXPO East

March 21-23, 2022 Pennsylvania Convention Center Philadelphia, PA USA is a great opportunity for entire project teams to make a day trip and discover the latest technologies and innovative crossover solutions to support capital investment decisions. No other show on the East Coast offers such a wide range of state-of-the-art packaging and processing solutions.

Taking place in March, PACK EXPO East provides an opportunity to address needs/projects that have recently arisen.

Registration is $30 through Feb. 25, after which the price increases to $130.

For more information, visit packexpoeast.com. —Sean Riley

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Mars’s Switch to Barrier Coating Cuts 18 T-Rexes worth of PE In the most unique analogy to date, Mars Service Director South and West EuWrigley UK shares that its switch from black rope, for Metsä Board, which suppolyethylene liner for its Maltesers chocolate plies the redesigned packaging. box to a dispersion-coated barrier board will The new carton, which launched reduce its use of plastic by the equivalent of on U.K. shelves in August 2021, is made 18 Tyrannosaurus Rexes—that’s 82 metric tons from 16.3-pt MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB for those not versed on the average weight of (fully-coated folding boxboard), litho-printed dinosaurs. The change is part of the U.K. comin five colors with low-migration, conventional pany’s efforts to make 100% of its packaging inks, plus a water-based coating. Inside the reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025. carton, Metsä applies the dispersion coating, Since it was introduced in the 1930s, the which provides a barrier against grease and The switch follows on the heels of other Maltesers chocolate-covered malted milk treat moisture. Says Terry, “The way we achieve the packaging initiatives by the confectionery was packed in a multilayer carton with a black barrier properties is confidential, but the regroup, including its launch in April 2021 of PE liner on the inside of the box. While the sults are tested and proven according to indusnarrower sharing pouches of some of its populiner prevented fats and oils from seeping into try-standard test methods as well as in real life lar candies, including M&M’s, Galaxy Counters, the outer paperboard packaging, it also made cases such as this.”

Galaxy Minstrels, Revels, Maltesers Buttons, the carton non-recyclable.

Says Mars, “The removal of PE from all Skittles, and Starburst. According to the comEliminating the plastic, Mars is now using Maltesers boxes in the U.K. means that the pany, the change to skinnier packs reduces a water-based barrier coating that is said to box itself is now fully recyclable and, without the plastic used by 51 metric tons, or around provide “significant environmental advanusing any additional paper pulp, around 930 647,000 sq m per year (equivalent weight in tages over traditional plastic-lined packaging.” tonnes of cardboard per year can now be fully dinosaurs not provided). —Anne Marie Mohan That’s according to Matthew Terry, Technical recycled in Britain.”

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BY THE NUMBERS

191

The number of stores and restaurants that will be selling products on-site in reusable packaging through the Loop program by the first quarter of 2022, with more than 150 manufacturers participating, selling 375 products

$45M The amount Kellogg is planning to invest in restructuring its North American supply chain over the next three years as it seeks to meet demand for its ready-to-eat cereals

70%

The year-over-year growth of hard seltzers for the 52 weeks ending June 13, representing sales of $4.3 billion

10 min

The amount of time on a Lime bicycle or electric scooter Coca-Cola will provide to more than 40,0000 consumers who purchase a Coca-Cola Sip Size bottle and make a pledge online to recycle it

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QUOTABLES

“Undoubtedly, sustainability will be the defining issue for the coffee industry over the next 20 years. Consumer expectations of coffee brands will rise dramatically as eco-anxiety replaces pandemic paranoia. Consumers are becoming more aware of carbon emissions and coffee is one of the worst offenders. The more activist-minded younger generation will show less tolerance for waste, especially pods that are recyclable but rarely recycled, with launches of ‘greener’ pods expected to grow fast.”

–Jonny Forsyth, Associate Director, Mintel Food & Drink, quoted in an article, “Buzzing on sustainability: Half of all coffee launches carry ethical or environmental claim,” from FoodNavigator.com

“Supply-chain bottlenecks and workforce gaps lead to delays and potential shortages, which are bothersome when a consumer must wait months for furniture delivery, but disastrous if those delays mean consumers don’t have access to essentials they depend on like baby formula, soap or toilet paper.”

–Geoff Freeman, CEO of Consumer Brands, as quoted in an article from Winsight Grocery Business, “Labor Woes Threaten Product Availability, CPG Group Warns”

“pep+ is the future of our company—a fundamental transformation of what we do and how we do it to create growth and shared value with sustainability and human capital at the center. It reflects a new business reality, where consumers are becoming more interested in the future of the planet and society. pep+ will change our brands and how they win in the market. For example, imagine Lay’s will start with a potato grown sustainably on a regenerative field, and then be cooked and delivered from a Net-Zero and Net Water Positive supply chain, sold in a biocompostable bag, with the lowest sodium levels in the market.”

–Ramon Laguarta, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, in an article from BeverageDaily.com, “PepsiCo to scale up SodaStream business globally in sustainability drive”

“Manufacturers [of frozen seafood] are focusing on expanding their product portfolios and entering new markets as a result of widespread adoption of frozen seafood around the world.

Investing substantially in promotional initiatives to increase awareness of the product’s benefits, as well as innovating in packaging, will help gain a competitive edge in this space.”

–A lead analyst from Fact.MR, in a release from the company, “Processed Form of Frozen Seafood to Remain Widely Preferred: Fact.MR Report”

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16 PW NOV2021

FIRST PERSON

Women, E-comm, and Collaborative Tech Shape a New Way of Working An expert panel of women (participants listed beneath image on facing page) at the Packaging & Processing Women’s Leadership Network discussed women and remote work, as well as solutions for adapting to pandemic-era consumer buying trends.

Stephanie Neil, moderator:

Amid the current skills crisis, a recent study by the Society for Human Resources Management showed that 69% of women who had lost their jobs or stopped working due to the pandemic and who identify as the primary caregivers to children under the age of 18 don’t plan to return to work. How can companies incentivize women to come back to the workplace?

Jan Tharp, Bumble Bee Foods: If you look at pre-COVID and manufacturing, it was all about customization and finding products that were individualistic. Take that thinking and move it over to human resources to become customized in how you go out attracting talent.

You look at it and say, “Okay, this person has children. They may need a different work environment. They may need different work times.” You can be flexible with that. I hope that if anything comes out of COVID it is that we realize there is no such thing as one size fits all.

If somebody decides to live and work remotely, are they giving up opportunities at the company?

Jan Tharp: During COVID, we have hired several people at executive levels and most of them are not required to move to San Diego, where we are based. It’s actually opened up a whole new world of talent for us.

We’ve been able to attract rockstar talent into our company by being a little more open with respect to where people work. Is that going to prevent them from getting opportunities? No. I think that leads into another discussion of “how are you effective in this new world of work?” If you’re not in the boardroom anymore and you’re on a computer, it’s a different toolbox. This puts a bit more pressure on the team member to say, “If you want to live in Antarctica, and you’ve got an internet connection, and you can still be as effective, then I’m going to embrace that.”

How do you shift as an organization, as a manufacturer, to accommodate for the e-commerce presence?

Jan Tharp: You look at what happened in COVID, and all the channels of distribution increased. But e-commerce increased the most. It went

FirstPerson_1121.indd 16

The conversation reflected here is a short excerpt of an in-depth, 40-minute discussion. Watch or listen to the whole thing at pwgo.to/7329. up 58%, compared to mass club general retail. It has slipped down just a little bit, but it’s still significantly higher than any other channel of distribution with respect to grocery.

So, it did force us to look into it. Our main product for tuna is a 48-count case. Most people don’t want 48 cans of tuna. Your offerings, your assortment online, ends up being a little bit different. And then you’ve got to think about the cost dynamics of it. A can of tuna retails for about a dollar, then you look at the cost of freight to get that can of tuna to your house, it’s an investment we’re making.

We don’t make any money on e-commerce. We lose money. But the idea is to try to get out there and eventually figure out how we can turn that into a profitable business. And lots of CPGs are faced with this challenge.

Yolanda Malone, PepsiCo: Our primary business is chips. And potato chips break when you put them in the bag. So for us, we have to put a lot around packaging, how to ship, if they’re going in combination with cans of tuna, or dish detergent. And really structuring that, to Jan’s point, profitably.

And adhering to even some of the companies like Amazon that have specific departments to ship our products in, make sure that we do the testing and that our team is set up. And so they’re also understanding what testing needs to be done to be qualified. Because we also saw significant growth during COVID, with people ordering online. And our team was challenged to be more efficient, to reduce cost so that we could get it out faster and supply consumers.

People are buying differently now through e-commerce. Tracey, was your experience over the past year with online buying part of the success of the organization?

Tracey Noonan, Wicked Good Cupcakes: My husband developed a platform called Pronto, which was really to help companies who wanted to do something for their employees—whether it was virtual parties, or sending birthday gifts.

And to make it easy, all people needed to order was an email address.

10/20/21 2:36 PM

17

And it was brilliant because I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone’s street address. I don’t know if they’re going on a vacation and I don’t know if they have food allergies. So in order to send what we call the gift card on steroids, all you needed was their email address. You sent them the gift card. And everyone could go in, pick their delivery date, what flavors they wanted, and put their own home address in. And it had to be easily navigable so people would go in and buy, not just go in and get lost. This really facilitated shopping online for people.

Tracey, in your work with contract manufacturers, is it difficult to manage relationships during the pandemic?

Tracey Noonan: We found that being supportive of our contract manufacturers, and empathetic towards what they were going through, was the key to keeping a good working relationship. We needed to have really good communication, and understand if something was going to be delayed, and if there needed to be an extended time period to receive product.

up our online presence for our people working remotely as well.

We’re noticing delays with our customers in terms of their projects.

It’s meant that we have to be really dialed into our customers, to still help them do their product launches, and collaborate with them.

We’re doing pre-order releases in terms of getting materials in. We’re taking a look at our inventories and focusing on those materials we use a lot of, and getting rid of some of the other ones.

How do you lead the global team, Yolanda, when you’re working remotely?

Yolanda Malone: It’s a lot of Zooms. The one thing I do miss is seeing my team faceto-face around the world. But as a leader, understanding where they’re at and being available is one of the most important items that I set up for myself. If I’m talking to my team in China, I’m going to be on their time zone. So it might be nine o’clock at night for me, but it’s their day.

To know that their leader cares about how they’re doing, and reaching out and having those one on ones—not even necessarily talking about the projects or the work, but just how the team’s doing and to see everyone, and see all the faces is also important.

Do your leadership skills have to change?

Jan Tharp: I do think there will be a new toolbox as we come out of this and the constituency that I think is going to be maybe a little more challenged are the new people coming into the workforce because they don’t get to learn by being with people like I did when I started in CPG 30 years ago. You went to meetings and watched how people address difficult questions. It’s a different skill that people will have to learn. I’m confident in our younger generation that (From left to right) Tracey Noonan, CEO, Wicked Good Cupcakes; Sharron Gilbert, President & they will certainly figure that out.

CEO, Septimatech; Jan Tharp, President & CEO, Bumble Bee Foods; Yolanda Malone, VP Global What we’ve done inside our company RD Foods PKG, PepsiCo; Stephanie Neil, Editor in Chief, OEM Magazine, PMMI Media Group. is try to do coffee and conversations for people who are not in the corporate office. We’ve also been pretty Sharron, how do you manage collaboration and maintain flexible, even in the corporate office where we will go for walks on productivity, especially in a work environment where you have the beach or sit on the pier and have a meeting. There’s a brewery to be hands-on, in spite of the pandemic? that has all outside seating and we’ve done a lot of meetings sitting at the bar at the brewery. You have to be creative and think about those types of things.

We had to really rely on different tools and technologies. The It’s a different toolbox for leaders as well. We need to do a lot more, adoption of Microsoft Teams really moved us forward into that what I call watching and listening. I am not about setting back-to-work collaboration—not just internal among employees, but also with our policies. You don’t build sidewalks until you see where people are customers. walking. It’s too early, in my opinion, to really know where things are When we’re having discussions about projects, design reviews, and going. So if we could just take a step back and watch, listen to our team then installation reviews, and that whole process there has to be a members, then we will figure out how we move on. —Melissa Griffen really good connection with our customers. So, we’ve been ramping

Sharron Gilbert, Septimatech:

FirstPerson_1121.indd 17

10/20/21 2:36 PM

18 PW NOV2021

THE LEGAL SIDE

By Eric F. Greenberg, Attorney-at-law

Another Instructive Court Case, This One a Victory for Food Packagers A recent federal court decision gave a big boost to the FDA’s Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) rules. As with last month’s column, this one will examine this single case for its unique lessons.

This particular court decision rejected arguments that consumer advocates, and even a government oversight agency, have made for at least 11 years.

The plaintiffs objected to FDA’s 2016 rules that, confirming the longtime practice and legal framework, allow individual companies to declare their uses of substances in food to be GRAS, without any FDA oversight, approval, or even knowledge.

Although the case explicitly dealt with direct food ingredients, the same GRAS concepts support the legality of many packaging substances as well.

The arena here is the FDA program for dealing with food additives and related substances. FDA requires new uses of substances that are “food additives,” including food ingredients and packaging substances alike, to get FDA preclearance before they are used, but substances that are safe and enjoy general recognition as such among relevant experts, and are thus GRAS, are exempt from the definition of “food additives” and thus from that preapproval requirement.

The plaintiffs were several advocacy groups, including The Center for Food Safety and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The plaintiffs asserted that the result of FDA’s rules allowing independent GRAS conclusions, and allowing but not requiring companies to notify FDA of their conclusions, was that, they claim, there are lots of substances of unknown safety, unknown to FDA, being used in or in contact with the food supply.

Plaintiffs claimed the rule an “unlawful subdelegation” to food companies of FDA’s duty to assure the safety of food, was in excess of FDA’s authority and was “arbitrary and capricious,” and a violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The court disagreed, saying FDA’s actions in making the rules was none of those things. The FDA’s regulations set up a system that allows companies, if they so choose, to notify FDA that the company thinks its particular use of a substance is GRAS, thus that it isn’t a “food additive” and isn’t required to get FDA approval.

The plaintiffs said that Congress made it FDA’s job to assure the safety of the food supply, but that this system subdelegates that responsibility to food makers. On the contrary, the court noted that FDA retains the power to take enforcement actions against companies.

“If the FDA has delegated anything at all to manufacturers, it is simply the ability to notify FDA of a GRAS determination, with which FDA can

agree or disagree,” said the judge.

The judge further said he was not persuaded by arguments that FDA violated the U.S. Constitution “by adopting a voluntary notification system and allowing post-violation, instead of previolation enforcement.” The judge said Congress didn’t clearly indicate whether it would be OK for FDA to require companies to notify FDA about their GRAS conclusions. Also, he ruled that FDA’s interpretation (that they weren’t required) was reasonable.

The judge said that when it made these regulations, “FDA noted that GRAS substances were excluded from the food additive process, and it is entirely reasonable that FDA would view this as suggesting Congress intended GRAS substances to be treated differently because Congress itself had done so.”

This decision inspires some general observations about how the law and agencies interact. First, this kind of inquiry into the reasonableness of agency interpretations of unclear laws, and the related convention of upholding agency interpretations as long as they are reasonable (not a very strict standard), is one of the most controversial doctrines in federal law. That’s because it causes lots of agency decisions to be upheld. The Supreme Court might change that someday, (and Justice Neil Gorsuch has made clear he’s not a fan of so much power being held by regulators). But we’ll see.

Second, the judge’s key message to the plaintiffs was to tell them, “Take it to Congress,” essentially saying that if you want to see a change in a law because you think the current one creates an unsafe food supply, you gotta get Congress, not FDA or even a court, to do it.

It’s common that regulatory agencies catch flak for the things they are doing, even though, often, they are doing what Congress instructed them to do because of the way it wrote the law.

Now, if the agency goes beyond the bounds of what Congress asked them to do, or interprets Congress’s law in some unreasonable way, then, sure, you have a valid complaint. But when you don’t like something an agency is doing, it’s often useful to ask if your real complaint is with Congress.

Is this the end of the objections to the GRAS program? Not necessarily. For one thing, the plaintiffs might appeal the decision to a federal appeals court, and after that, whoever loses might try taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Also, Congress might change the law to require notice to FDA of GRAS uses of substances or to impose other measures that cut back on packagers’ independence. But for now, this decision in Center for Food Safety v. Becerra, 17-CV-3833 (U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York), is the big news in town. PW

Eric Greenberg can be reached at greenberg@efg-law.com. Or visit his firm’s Web site at www.ericfgreenbergpc.com.

INFORMATIONAL ONLY, NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

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10/19/21 6:02 AM

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10/19/21 8:00 PM

20 PW NOV2021

THE BIG PICTURE

By Sterling Anthony, CPP, Contributing Editor

When the Identity of a Packaging Supplier is Withheld from the Buyer This is not a discussion of the theoretical—these scenarios A packaging buyer awards business to a packaging supplier but happen. So how does a practice that’s meant to be undisclosed come unknowingly is serviced by a different supplier. It happens when the to light? There have been occasions whereby buyers requested a supplier-of-record outsources to another supplier without informing plant visit, or made some other inquiry—not out of suspicion, but in the buyer. accordance with vendor management policies, for example. In such There have been times when suppliers knew during bidding that instances, all suppliers-of-record give responses, some more honestly they intended to outsource. It can be due to temporary insufficient than others. Whatever the case, buyers tend to tell others about their plant capacity. Distinct from capacity, it can be due to equipment experiences with suppliers, whether good or bad. having to be acquired and the lead time having to be bridged. In The existence of “stealth” suppliers is public record, too, courtesy another scenario, the supplier moves a production line to another of lawsuits. Whereas one might guess the litigants to be buyer and facility and must manage until that facility is up and running. supplier-of-record, most suits are between the supplier-of-record Other times, outsourcing is the result of conditions that manifest and the other supplier. The suppliers contend over such matters as themselves after the award. An example: a supplier lands business payments, fulfillment of promises, and of such size and scope that servicing it who’s responsible for making good on requires that some other business be It’s a safe generalization that credits granted to the buyer for defective outsourced. What is not an example is buyers want to know the identities supplies. Regarding the last mentioned, when a supplier remains the source and seamlessly switches production from one of their suppliers. Implied in that suppliers disagree about the cause(s) of defect(s) and whose quality assurance of its facilities to another, with no breach generalization is that buyers have the fell short. of the contract or purchase order. the right to choose.

It’s a safe generalization that buyers The supplier-of-record is accountable want to know the identities of their to the buyer for the performance of the suppliers. Implied in that generalization is that buyers have the right other supplier. Therefore, outsourcing should reflect well-thoughtto choose. Underpinning it all is that, for any marketer of packaged out criteria. A challenge to that end is the dueling considerations goods, packaging supplies are important, if not critical, to overall of competence and competitiveness. The supplier-of-record wants operations. With undisclosed outsourcing, the supplier-of-record the other supplier to be competent, capable of performing to the substitutes its criteria for those of the buyer. That’s true, even under satisfaction of the buyer. On the other hand, the supplier-of-record the argument that the supplier-of-record merely conveys the buyer’s needs to be wary of creating a major competitor, post-outsourcing. specifications to the other supplier, the same end result planned and Inducements for the other supplier’s involvement can include a expected. promise of future outsourcing. That carrot is especially likely when The old saying about there being two types applies here: in this the other supplier must incur additional costs (e.g., in equipment or case, buyers who know about the practice of undisclosed outsourcing, personnel). It even sometimes happens that the supplier-of-record and buyers who don’t. The former can be proactive by contractually lends personnel to the other supplier throughout production, in an prohibiting it. The latter, nonetheless, might recognize the need to advisory capacity. do likewise, prompted by a continuous pursuit to manage all facets Several factors enable a supplier to outsource without the of its packaging. The envisioned scenario is a brainstorming session, knowledge of the buyer. One is that such outsourcing is stopgap, or similar back-and-forth, in which someone asks, “Hey, what if a only meant to last a short time until certain conditions are resolved. supplier outsourced our business without informing us?”

Another is that the other supplier typically is contractually prohibited Regardless of how they come to be aware of the potential for a from making its involvement known to the buyer. Yet another is second, undisclosed supplier, a buyer’s decision to protect itself from logistical tactics; for example, shipments are routed to the supplierundisclosed outsourcing should call for inputs from at least these of-record, who then sends them to the buyer. A variation is for a disciplines: packaging, procurement, and legal. Packaging oversees distribution warehouse to be the intermediary. Even if the other the specifications, procurement oversees order placement, and legal supplier ships directly to the buyer, anonymity can be had with a oversees contract language. PW blind bill of lading.

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10/19/21 8:01 PM

22 PW NOV2021

SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

By Matt Tudball, Senior Editor, Recycling, ICIS

Retailers, Brands Ride the Wave of Ocean-Bound Plastic The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the biggest global disrupters of a generation. In addition to its devastating human impact, the outbreak also saw businesses fold, economies shrink, and the world forced into waves of lockdowns. The petrochemical industry did not escape the impact of the virus; oil prices dropped and rebounded, consumer demand patterns changed, and global supply chains were thrown into disarray.

However, despite the chaos, some pre-COVID topics are coming back to the fore in the petrochemical space, one of which is sustainability. Sidelined at the beginning of the outbreak as demand for single-use plastics for hygiene reasons grew and as some converters chose lower-priced, fossil fuel-derived virgin polymers over higher-priced and less-available recycled materials, sustainability targets are once again getting serious attention from the industry.

Within this sector, ocean-bound plastic (OBP)—defined as plastic waste within 60 km (37 miles) of a coastline or waterway that is at risk of entering the ocean—is gaining small but significant traction within the packaging sector, particularly from those in the recycled PET market. Now, major European retailers are investing in the sector. Last year, German discount retail chain Lidl won the U.K. Retail Industry Awards’ Sustainable Initiative of the Year 2020 for its use of Bantam International’s Prevented Ocean Plastic (POP) across 13 of its fresh fish products in the U.K. Bantam is one of a growing number of companies supplying OBP globally.

Rising tide of interest The appetite for OBP is growing. By incorporating OBP into products and packaging, companies are not only helping to support the communities of informal collectors and sorters that are most impacted by plastic waste, but they are also sourcing quality material at comparable prices to European rPET flake.

Retailers such as Sainsbury’s, as well as firms like Childs Farm, a U.K.-based cosmetics company specializing in natural skincare products for children, are now incorporating Bantam’s POP in their packaging.

So why ocean-bound plastic? Says Childs Farm Sustainability Officer Louise Normal, the company came across OBP in a drive to increase its use of recycled content. The company had reached 30% recycled content in its high-density polyethylene bottles three years ago, but wanted to move to 100% recycled content because its feels strongly that it’s the right thing to do. So it looked at rPET as an alternative.

SP_1121.indd 22

Read this related article, “Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration is Key to Solving Ocean Plastics Crisis”: pwgo.to/7304 “We couldn’t find the HDPE supply, so we looked at rPET. We saw various grades, but [one of our converters] came to us with OBP,” Normal relates. She adds that other recycled materials had a greyish tint, which the company would have happily attributed to using 100% recycled content—a message that fits in with Childs Farm’s overall sustainability goals. But OBP comes from PCR PET bottles, manually collected and sorted, so it has only a slight yellow tint.

Normal notes notes that packaging made from virgin PET is cheaper, but currently, POP is only “slightly more expensive” than virgin material.

Test and trace Most brands and retailers rely on the testing processes of their suppliers to ensure the packaging and products they use are suitable for purpose and meet the necessary safety and regulatory requirements. This was the case for U.K. retailer Sainsbury’s, which is incorporating POP into some of its packaging in the U.K. Says Ashwin Moorthy, Category Packaging Technology Manager at Sainsbury’s, “We have a system within our business for collecting packaging specifications from product suppliers…so we ensure our product supplier is doing the due diligence.”

In Sainsbury’s case, that supplier is Sharpak, part of Group Guillin, which has been partnering with Bantam for some time. Sainsbury’s spent over a year working with Sharpak and Bantam to ensure the OBP provided met their needs. Sharpak helped Sainsbury’s understand the supply chain, how the material meets all relevant regulatory requirements such as the EU’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Certification of Compliance, and how the OPB was certified as ocean-bound plastic. In this case, certification provider OceanCycle verifies the material collected, the location where it was collected, who collects it, and how and where it is sorted.

As Raffi Schieir, Director of Bantam International, explains, OceanCycle checks details such as the number of male-to-female informal collectors and if collection is

U.K.-based children’s natural skincare products company uses rPET from ocean bound plastics for some of its product packaging.

10/19/21 7:38 PM

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Sainsbury’s uses Prevented Ocean Plastic packaging across its fish and berry ranges. taking place by individuals or in groups, and ensures no child labor is used at any stage of the collection or sorting process. According to Sainsbury’s Moorthy, OceanCycle is also open to inspection from both Sainsbury’s and Sharpak.

Sainsbury’s requires its product suppliers to have checks and balances in place for all materials used. Through OceanCycle and Sharpak, Sainsbury’s can get complete “shore-to-store” traceability on its POP. Childs Farm is accustomed to traceability due to working with suppliers of different cosmetics raw materials, such as coconut oil.

Says Normal, while carrying out audits and ensuring traceability is hard and is a risk, if companies avoid working with communities because of that risk, they will end up not helping them at all.

Scoops

Gummies

Boxes and Containers

Pills and Tablets

Bags

Investment needed Bantam recently celebrated its 20,000th metric ton of fullytraceable POP being placed onto the market, but the volumes of OBP currently available remain small, and investment is needed to help the sector grow.

Both Childs Farm and Sainsbury’s are able to source a consistent tonnage of OBP, but growth requires adoption from the industry and sharing best practices, Moorthy says.

There is also the worry that firms might only use OBP as a marketing tool. “My concern is if this becomes a tick box for consumers— having the [Prevented Ocean Plastic] logo [on products] rather than supporting the organizations that supply the plastic,” says Normal.

But with more investment in the industry, costs should remain at competitive levels, improving infrastructure and logistics. And, adds Moorthy, if more businesses galvanize behind OBP and are able to help establish it as an additional and sustainable source of recycled material next to existing supply, this will help bring costs more in line with European levels.

Ironically, the success of all ocean-bound plastics initiatives will be measured when there is no longer any OBP left to collect because the right waste management infrastructure is in place to prevent any plastic from getting anywhere near the coast in the first place.

In the meantime, companies such as Bantam, Childs Farm, Sainsbury’s, and Lidl see the advantages of supporting OBP to allow the market to prosper and grow, and ultimately improve the lives of the communities of informal collectors and sorters in the developing world that are living with our plastic waste every day. PW Matt Tudball is Senior Editor, Recycling at ICIS, which provides market intelligence on petrochemicals, energy, and fertilizers.

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24 PW NOV2021

PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO, a Huge Success The industry reunited in September for the most important packaging and processing event in memory. If you weren’t able to make it, find out what you missed.

By Sean Riley, Senior Director, Media and Industry Communications, PMMI The packaging and processing community came together in September for perhaps the most important PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO in its history, according to show producer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. More than 23,000 attendees, eager to find solutions to current challenges, engaged with over 1,500 exhibitors across four expansive halls and more than 740,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It serves as the largest trade show in the U.S. in 2021 at the time it wrapped up.

“In a word, PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO was a success,” says Jim Pittas, President and CEO, PMMI. “Exhibitors and attendees alike were energized by the number of people who attended and more importantly the business conducted from the moment we opened the doors on Monday.”

As PMMI’s State of the Industry report highlights (more in sidebar

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on page 26), 2020 was a record year for packaging machinery, with the total size of the market in the U.S. increasing to $12.3 billion, growing 14.4%. In the case of domestic shipments, 14.7% growth reached $9.4 billion, reported Jorge Izquierdo, Vice President, Market Development PMMI during Sept. 27’s media briefing. This record year led to the industry’s readiness to come together to see the latest innovations in person.

Attendees were pleased to see all the solutions on display at PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO, with Nathan Heidrick from Amy’s Kitchen coming as a first-timer looking for automation solutions.

“We came here to see what equipment is out there right now,” says Heidrick. “We currently do a lot of manual packaging, and due to labor shortages, we [are happy] to [find solutions] to now automate our end-of-line systems.”

Other attendees appreciated the innovations, and the opportunity to network with peers.

“PACK EXPO Las Vegas is the show that I heard I could find all types of packaging solutions for products, and it delivered,” says John Murphy, Facilities Engineer, Fello Cannabis. “It has been great to discover new innovations, the latest trends and networking opportunities in such a comprehensive packaging event.”

Exhibitors were giddy as well. Matt Jones, Vice President of Sales for Dorner, could not have been more pleased with the traffic and leads that he found in his booth, indicating pent-up demand from the industry.

“We had a lead goal for all of day one that we achieved by the midpoint of that day, and by late morning of day two, we were already past our expected lead total for the entire show,” says Jones. “Just a great all-around event for Dorner.”

Jonathon Titterton, CEO of Coesia Americas and R.A Jones, was also

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State of the Industry: Top Seven 2021 U.S. Packaging Machinery Trends The 2021 State of the Industry U.S. Packaging Machinery report from PMMI’s Busines Intelligence tells us that U.S. packaging machinery production total shipments increased 14.7% between 2015 and 2020, with a packaging order backlog increase of 22.3%, and a converting order backlog increase of 12.2% in the same period. Download the FREE Executive Summary of the report at pwgo.to/7312.

There are seven areas that are currently impacting the packaging machinery market most:

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IIoT and Wireless Connectivity

The Industrial internet of things (IIoT) continues to impact the product lifecycle in the packaging industry including design, operation, maintenance, and supply chain.

The progress of conventional wireless network in smart manufacturing had lagged due to its inability to maintain stable connections and latencies.

Automation and Robotics

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To achieve higher efficiency and productivity, more packaging machinery companies are embracing automation in their packaging lines and leveraging smart manufacturing to do so.

Machine vision is a rapidly maturing technology in the packaging machinery market, though the application varies between small enterprises and bigger organizations. Robotics has also been penetrating the packaging machinery market, with the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G, and expanding IoT environment.

Cobots, or collaborative robots, emerged as Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) became prevalent on factory floors, and are designed to be safer for humans to work with in close proximity.

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PET & rPET P roducer

Converters/Bottlers

Cybersecurity

A ransomware attack on the world’s largest meat processor, JBS, in June of 2021, temporarily shut down nine beef plants, also impacting the company’s pork and poultry processing plants across the U.S. Other companies such as Cadbury, Target, and Equifax have also reported recent incidents of cyberattacks, further highlighting the vulnerability of the critical infrastructure of manufacturers across the industrial supply chain to increasing levels of cyber-attacks.

Sustainability and Flexible Packaging

Many food brands have invested in packaging innovations and have implemented sustainability initiatives in their production and packaging lines due to consumer demand. Machine modifications

Consumers/Collectors

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ds or adjustments are often needed to achieve sustainable packaging goals. The challenges CPGs face when moving to more sustainable packaging provide opportunities for OEMs to explore application details with customers: • Secondary packaging machines such as conveyors must be able to handle material reduction strategies, including lightweight corrugated.

• Machines need to run different style boxes to accommodate sustainability strategies, such as box right-sizing. Case packers with a smaller footprint can help achieve sustainability goals through reduction in energy usage.

• A more efficient process of unpacking the contents of a pallet and repacking them into different sizes or variety packs is needed, with a focus on reducing material usage.

The flexible packaging industry is also innovating to meet sustainable and recyclable packaging demands by creating compostable or sustainable components in films and pouch closures.

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Material Innovations

Many food and beverage brands have increasingly used recyclable board-based packaging, compostable packaging, and 100% recycled paper packaging. Materials innovation is an

area worth exploring in the coming years, and some companies have even pledged long-term research commitment in packaging material innovation.

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Waste Reduction Legislation

In June of 2020, U.S. representatives introduced the Plastic Waste Reduction and Recycling Act. If passed, the act will guide the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to establish a plastic waste reduction and recycling program to improve the global competitiveness of the U.S. recycling industry.

The act further aims to reduce plastic waste, encourage research into and technologies for recycling infrastructure, and ensure U.S. leadership in national and international standards development.

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E-Commerce

E-commerce has become an increasingly important factor in the industry, particularly in the U.S. Package design must maximize packing space, and there is a trend for e-commerce packaging to use more pouches and easily packable trays, and less glass.

The shift in purchasing habits will continue to drive demand for packaging machinery as e-commerce requires increased touchpoints to reach the customer, increased packaging, and supply chain challenges. —Kim Overstreet

Source: PMMI Business Intelligence, PMMI State of the Industry US Packaging Machinery Report.

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Vegas reported multiple examples of attendees eager to take the equipment home with them. Spee-Dee Packaging reported a bidding war over a piece of its machinery among multiple attendees, and President and CEO, Dave Navin, left Las Vegas pleased with the event.

“Speaking for Spee-Dee, we had a great PACK EXPO Las Vegas. Everyone who visited our booth was looking for an actual solution or machine rather than just gathering information,” says Navin.

Jake Garvey, Director of OEM Sales from Garvey Corp., has attended PACK EXPO shows almost since birth for the family-run conveyor company. In all his years attending the show, he thought he had seen it all, but PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO provided a first-time experience.

“We will need to bring a new display machine to PACK EXPO East. For the first time that I can recall, we sold our machine directly off the show floor,” Garvey says.

Rocky Marquis, President and CEO of Marq Packaging noted that the show exceeded his expectations. He counted PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO as one of the better shows among the dozens he has exhibited at.

“It was obvious from the traffic in the aisles that this was a well-attended show, but what stood out to me from day one was the number of people who came into our booths with projects they already had ready to go,” says Marquis.

The most outstanding innovations on the show floor received Technology Excellence Awards on Tuesday afternoon, voted on by show attendees. The winners of the 2021 awards were Canovation in the Food and Beverage and Personal Care/Pharmaceuticals category for its CanReseal, P.E. Labellers in General Packaging for Simpl-Cut, and Hiperbaric for General Processing for its HPP In-Bulk Technology (see page 10 for more).

Kevin Christiansen from Café Barnabas tea company noted that the First Timer’s attendee lounge provided a perfect blueprint for his week.

“I have never seen a show like this before; what a wonderful experience,” says Christiansen. “The First Timer’s Lounge was like a mentor program for anyone who has never been to the show before. It really helped me in particular with a plan to attack the show.”

Daniel Finnegan, Senior Packaging Engineer from TFH Petcare/Nylabone, was very pleased with the sustainable solutions he was able to find at PACK EXPO A SPECIAL SERVICE FROM Las Vegas.

“I came here looking for two things: one being more sustainable packaging for our preform bags and Your KHS Bottles & Shapes service provides secondly looking for new stretch wrappers and palletizers,” Finnegan says. you with support from the initial design to Chance Chaffin, Production Coordinator, Heritage the finished, packaged bottle.

Distilling Co. came to PACK EXPO Las Vegas looking Our Bottles & Shapes program pools our unique wealth of PET expertise for your benefit. Whether for the for packaging machinery but was surprised and overeager to put his stamp of approval on this year’s event as one of the best he could recall.

“Coesia had even more leads at this show and more all-around quality engagement with attendees than the last PACK EXPO Las Vegas in 2019,” Titterton says.

While attendees buying machinery right off the show floor is not an everyday occurrence, it happens at trade shows, and PACK EXPO Las

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whelmed with all the additional opportunities the show provided.

“I came to PACK EXPO Las Vegas to find new packaging machinery for my distillery company and what I encountered was so much more.

Between PACK to the Future, Innovation Stage sessions, and networking, I learned much more than I expected in a way you can’t do online,” notes Chaffin. “With such a massive show, there’s nothing you can’t find at PACK EXPO.” As Chaffin indicates, PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO was more than just a packaging and processing equipment show, with over 80 free educational sessions. Hungry for new information, attendees took advantage of the opportunities at the Forum, PACK to the Future, and Innovation Stages throughout the show floor. Many accessed digital showrooms and select show content online via PACK EXPO Xpress, which debuted this year to extend the show’s reach beyond the convention center’s walls. All registered show attendees can continue to access PACK EXPO Xpress until Nov. 19.

The return of The Processing Zone was particularly well received by attendees and exhibitors.

“We saw great foot traffic over the course of the show with most attendees being qualified candidates with decision making power,” said Roberto Peregrina, Director, Hiparbaric USA. “Those who traveled to be here came prepared and conducted research beforehand in order to be intentional with their time spent at the show.”

Thousands of attendees flocked to the North Hall to take a journey through the evolution of packaging and processing at PACK to the Future. The curated exhibit included 26 historic packaging machines dating from the late 1890s. The machinery was surrounded by imagery supplied by CPGs, museums, and others such as Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellogg, Hormel, Anheuser-Busch, and Merck.

A highlight of the show’s second day came early when nearly 500 industry professionals gathered for the Packaging and Processing Women’s Leadership Network (PPWLN) breakfast. Keynote speaker Tracey Noonan, Co-founder and CEO of Wicked Good Cupcakes, reflected on her experience scaling an ecommerce business and managing a growing workforce. Then she was joined by Yolanda Malone, Vice President of Global RD Foods at PepsiCo, and PPWLN co-chairs Jan Tharp, president and CEO, Bumble Bee Seafood Co., and Sharron Gilbert, President and CEO of Septimatech Group Inc., for a candid conversation about the new world of work and what it means to the future of manufacturing (see details on page 16).

“We would like to thank PMMI’s Board of Directors, our membership, exhibitors, and all attendees who supported PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO and made this show a success,” says Laura Thompson, VP Trade Shows, PMMI.

PMMI heads east for the next event in the PACK EXPO portfolio of trade shows, with registration officially open for PACK EXPO East (March 21-23, 2022; Pennsylvania Convention Center). Now in its fifth edition, the three-day event returns to Philadelphia after a record-breaking PACK EXPO East 2020 that featured 7,100-plus attendees and its largest show floor to date. For more information, visit packexpoeast.com, and for all show related information visit packexpo.com. PW

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Top Shelf, the original line of Real Treat cookies, caters to adult flavor palates. The paperboard hexagon design was inspired by honeycombs.

Credit: Real Treat

Real Treat Cookies Cater to Adult Tastes and Niche Market Sales This specialty cookie brand is using Instagramable package design and organic ingredients to position itself as a premier ‘Top Shelf’ treat while finding unique channels to grow market share beyond retail.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Pandemic pivot to e-comm

“Instagramable” packaging

By Kim Overstreet, Senior Content Strategist, Alignment Real Treat, a small Canadian brand of organic cookies that caters to adults with its unique flavor profiles, has weathered the pandemic, won both NEXTY and sofi awards in 2021, and is poised for even more growth in 2022.

Jacqueline Day, Founder and CEO of Real Treat Kitchen Ltd., founded the company in 2014 out of her lifelong love of cookies and a belief that there was a need for an organic cookie made from ‘real’ ingredients. After having her daughter, Day says her “values around sustainability were solidified that much more,” and she was “looking for cookies that were genuinely indulgent and delicious, and aligned with my values around sustainability and organics.” But she couldn’t find anything that wasn’t in the functional food space, or junk food.

Day initially brought her cookies to the farmer’s market and used this period to test the product as well as different packaging styles. As she says, “It wasn’t just about the product. I knew that packaging was going to be as important to our success as the cookies themselves would be. So that kind of differentiated me because at a lot of the markets, vendors don’t put a lot of thought into that aspect.”

The loss of her job prompted Day to incorporate the company and seek help to expand the business. A natural grocer in Calgary consulted with her about label requirements for retail, and after she finalized the branding and package design, she launched the Top Shelf line. “Top Shelf is for foodies,” says Day. “These are cookies that are for grown-up palates. They’re great for gifting or entertaining with. We call them Top

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Shelf because that’s where they live. These are that special treat you save for yourself to enjoy at the end of a long day. These are not the cookies you’re putting in your kid’s lunch box.” Flavors include Lemon Sablés with Herbes de Provence, Salted Caramel Shorties with Fennel, Dark Chocolate Chunk with Smoked Pecans, and Double Dark Chocolate with a Twist (house-candied lemon peel is the twist).

“One thing about our cookies is we never use palm oil, organic or otherwise. Everything we bake is made with butter. We’re one of only two brands of organic cookie in North America that use butter,” she says. “That, and that we’re very ingredient driven, are what sets us apart. We don’t lean as heavily on sugar. Instead, our yum factor comes from flavorful ingredients like fresh lemons, spices, great chocolate, and smoked nuts. When I was designing the packages, I wanted them to feel premium because they are, and wanted them to also convey the creativity of the flavors while paying homage to the beautiful ingredients.”

Day says the hexagon package shape was inspired by honeycombs, because part of Real Treat’s organic mission is about bees. “One of the reasons why I’m so passionate about organics is because it is one of the ways we can protect the bees in our ecosystem. Losing bee populations is harmful to us all, and we know that some of the chemicals that are used in conventional big ag are killing bees.” The functionality of the honeycomb shape also protects the cookies in transit. Inside the paperboard hexagon (made from recycled content) is a cellophane bag with high barrier properties.

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The gift industry has been a substantial part of Real Treat’s business and continues to grow through e-commerce.

Credit: Real Treat

RealTreat_EmergingBrands.indd 32

Growing the product line A couple of years after launching Top Shelf, Day added Pantry, a new line of cookies that are more kid friendly. “There’s still a need out there for those cookies that you do want to share with your kids, the cookies that people think of first when they think, “I want a cookie,” says Day. “You’re most likely thinking about a chocolate chip cookie, or an oatmeal raisin cookie, or in my case, my grandma’s shortbread. Though these flavors are ubiquitous, there still wasn’t a yummy organic option on the market. So, I launched Real Treat Pantry.”

The packaging for the Pantry line has gone through two iterations, the first being a stretched and gabled hexagon paperboard that houses two stacks of cookies, as opposed to one tall sleeve, tied with a ribbon. “As we have learned around here,” jokes Day, “I might be good at designing pretty packages, but I’m not necessarily great at designing efficient ones. So, we had to learn the hard way as this line blew up really fast and we got really busy hand-tying thousands of ribbons, that efficiency trumps pretty in this business. So, darling as they are, and as much as I love their aesthetic, we had to then evolve this line to a different style of packaging.”

The second Pantry design was what the brand ended up with for grocery retail. A matte finish coated aluminum is the same packaging material that is used for coffee bags, but in a different size. On the side, it reads, “Cookies you crave.” “And they’re still striped,” says Day, “they still have that Pantry feel to them aesthetically, but it’s a little more practical. These we’re able to fill and heat seal in about a quarter of the time

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of the gabled boxes. Another advantage of these bags is that we are able to achieve a longer shelf life without compromising the integrity of the ingredients we use.”

Day says the original Pantry packaging is no longer offered to general retail, but they “have a number of boutique retailers and gift clients that really love these hand-tied packages and are willing to pay more for them. So, we’re keeping it around for them.”

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Real Treat started in a few retail stores, says Day, “but I was very strategic about what stores we went into. Because I only had the Top Shelf line initially, our cookies needed to be merchandised in the specialty gourmet channel. In our city, a lot of gift companies go to specialty retailers looking for things they haven’t seen before. Once our products had been discovered by some of these excellent gift companies, who then started posting pretty Instagram pictures of their curated boxes with our cookies in them, and other gift companies reached out to us as well, we realized there were great opportunities for us in that channel. From the early days of Real Treat the gift industry has been a substantial part of our business, but it’s really grown tremendously alongside the boom in e-commerce in the last 18 months.

“Something that we’ve started weighing heavily in our strategy when we’re designing packaging and brand collateral is the Instagram factor. The gift companies have been driving most of their sales on Instagram for a few years now, and because of this, they consider the design and aesthetic of a brand and its products above all else when sourcing for their collections. So not only is it important that our packages be pretty in a way that resonates with their brand aesthetic, our own website and Instagram feed needs to achieve that as well so the buyer feels there is a natural fit.”

Surviving the pandemic by growing e-commerce COVID-19 challenged the business in its initial growth years. Says Day, “In food CPG, the common premise is that brands, if they’re going to survive, must meet and then thrive through their fifth year. Typically, years five and six are when brands who have made it that long then gain significant traction. We were well on our way into our fifth year when the pandemic hit.

It was gut wrenching to lose a substantial amount of shelf space to soup and toilet paper, just as we were really starting to get some traction in grocery retail.”

Like many companies who had to pivot to get through the pandemic, e-commerce became more of a focus to get in front of customers. “We had it [ecommerce] in place, but we weren’t doing it well,” says Day. “After COVID hit, we really started exploring the

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website, plus maybe Amazon. Now we have channels that we hadn’t been maximizing six different e-commerce channels, with previously. So, whereas we had previously partners like Faire and the Specialty Food been very retail focused, we definitely shiftAssociation’s Infinite Aisle platform, also in ed our attention to our own e-commerce and addition to several grocery retailers that exbegan working really hard to optimize that ist only online. Brick and mortar continues to and develop an e-commerce strategy that exbe an important piece, but it is not the whole tends beyond our own website.” pie anymore. Not by a long shot.”

Real Treat partnered with Shopify at the Real Treat currently has distribution in end of 2020, and Day says that has worked California and across Canada and has plans really well. “It really enabled us to develop to launch a new product in 2022—drinking a well-oiled B2C e-commerce machine. But chocolate, a homage to Mexican drinking what we’ve also done through our site in the chocolate. Available as a dry powder to be last few months is to channel most of our mixed with milk, there are two flavors: Anwholesale business through our Shopify webcho chili, and a second aromatic flavor with site too. We have built an online wholesale cinnamon, vanilla bean, and nutmeg. The portal which has helped us tremendously as drinking chocolate was intended to launch we have sought to streamline our order manlast year but was held up due to packaging agement process. Getting most orders feedprocurement issues during the pandemic. ing through the website has made us much Because there was still demand from the gift more efficient, and ensured we are providing Jacqueline Day, Founder and CEO of Real Treat market, Day did a soft launch of the powa great quality of service to everyone who Kitchen. Credit: Real Treat dered mix in clear cellophane bags. purchases our products.”

The company is set to expand production to a co-manufacturer in ear“Our e-commerce strategy now includes a number of wholesale ely 2022, and won two awards in 2021: NEXTY—Best New Sweet Snack and commerce channels that didn’t exist just a couple of years ago,” Day sofi (Specialty Food Associations)—Gold, for Cookies and Snack Bars. PW continues. “E-commerce used to consist of a single channel, your own

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BIC has transitioned seven of its razor varieties in the U.S. from blister packs to paperboard hang-tag cartons made from 80% recycled content. Among them are the Hybrid Flex5 Titanium and the Click 5 Soleil.

BIC Transforms its Approach to Plastic Products & Packaging New sustainability goals around its use of plastic drive BIC to look at new options for products and packaging, including a greater use of recycled materials, a move from plastic to paperboard, and refillable and reusable alternatives.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Sustainability strategy

Move from plastic to paper

Refill/reuse

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor Founded in 1944, Clichy, France-based stationery, lighter, and shaving products company BIC has built its business around bringing everyday essentials—most of them made from plastic—to consumers around the world. Now, in an era where products and packaging made from plastic are in consumers’ and legislators’ crosshairs, BIC is taking its circular economy journey, begun in 2003, to the next level by transforming its approach to plastic.

This transformation is being guided by ambitious commitments made by the company as part of its “Writing the Future, Together” 2025 Sustainable Development Program, first announced in 2018. By 2030, BIC aims to have 50% of its products made from non-virgin petroleum

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plastic, with an intermediate goal of 20% by 2025. In the area of packaging, it has pledged that by 2025, 100% of its consumer plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable, or compostable.

Furthermore, BIC has committed that by 2025, 100% of its paper and carboard packaging will be provided by certified sources and/or will be recycled, 100% of its plastic packaging will be PVC-free, and 75% of the material used in its plastic packaging will be recycled. According to the company, plastic represents 21% of its carbon footprint. By reaching these commitments, BIC estimates it could reduce its emissions by 10% by 2030.

Said BIC CEO Gonzalve Bich at the time of the announcement of these goals, “BIC has been at the forefront of sustainability for more than

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15 years; it is a core element of everything we do, from how we operate to the products and solutions we bring to consumers. We know shoppers are increasingly looking for more sustainable options, and that is what we will continue to deliver. It’s our 4R philosophy: reducing the amount of raw materials used to make our products, including as much recycled or alternative materials as possible, making more refillable products, and improving the recyclability of our products and packaging.”

Driven by a proprietary science- and data-driven design tool and scorecard that is integrated into its product development process and will soon be used for its packaging as well, BIC is making impressive progress toward its goals. At year-end 2020, the company reported that it had transitioned to 49.3% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic in its consumer packaging, was using 48.9% recycled content in its plastic packaging, 94.4% of its packaging was PVCfree, and 97.3% of its cardboard packaging was coming from a certified and/or recycled source.

scorecard [EMA],” Choulet says. “In 2020 the digital development of the EMA was completed, and the scorecard was integrated into the product development processes. An extension of the EMA tool for evaluating BIC products is underway for packaging. This tool makes it possible to evaluate new packaging in order to optimize it and reduce its environmental footprint and will be used by packaging development teams in their everyday decision-making process.”

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BIC uses ‘just what’s necessary’ BIC’s environmental journey began in 2003, when it launched its Sustainable Development Program, with the first report on the program published in 2004.

According to the company, Sustainable Development is about generating economic growth while respecting people and nature. In BIC’s 2020 Universal Registration Document, it explains, “This exhaustive program encompasses all key sustainability issues as well as the related risks to which BIC, in order to fulfill its corporate responsibility, must respond.”

Watch a video on BIC’s vision and mission at pwgo.to/7283 But it could be argued that BIC has always been about a reduced footprint. In 1950, co-founder Marcel Bich invented the company’s flagship BIC Cristal pen, the symbol of Bich’s philosophy of “just what’s necessary” and now the world’s best-selling disposable ballpoint pen.

Affirming this minimalist philosophy, BIC Director of Product Lifecycle Management Thomas Choulet says, “One of our founding principles is to offer fairly priced products made with as few materials as possible, and that includes packaging.”

To this end, he explains, in 1994, BIC began conducting Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) of its products.

The first was undertaken to compare a non-refillable shaver with a refillable one, the results of which indicated remarkably similar impacts. In 2004, with the launch of its Sustainable Development Program, BIC extended that work and commissioned a “normalized” LCA along with several simplified LCAs for three category-leading products.

“More recently, we’ve developed a tool called the Environmentally & Socially Measurable Advantage

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The new BIC ReVolution line is the brand’s first full range of eco-friendly stationery items and includes ball pens, mechanical pencils, permanent markers, and correction tape.

The scorecard encompasses BIC’s 4R strategy, but goes beyond and integrates considerations such as design to recycle, green chemistry, substances, or societal aspects. To date, 90% of BIC products have been measured by EMA, and 50% of them have been shown to have environmental benefits.

Adds Choulet, “All of the innovation projects and new launches are tested within EMA before being launched. Specific criteria in terms of sustainability score have to be checked to validate the launch.”

Another eco-conscious strategy the company has historically used is to offer the majority of its products without consumer packaging or in value packs to minimize the amount of packaging needed. In Europe,

77% of BIC’s writing products are packaged in boxes, trays, or pouches of at least 10 products (81% in North America), 79% of lighters are sold in trays of at least 50 (64% in North America), and 81% of shavers are marketed in pouches of five, 10, or more.

BIC’s current sustainability commitments, Choulet shares, are the result of several factors—from consumer demand to new R&D. “In particular, we know [from a 2020 Report from First Insight] that consumers are demanding more reusable, recyclable, or compostable products and packaging: 62% of Generation Z shoppers prefer to buy from sustainable brands, on par with Millennials, while 54% of Generation X say the same,” he says. “Meanwhile, we have garnered a greater understanding of the impact of packaging on the environment, and our R&D team is continuing to research new ways to responsibly transform our packaging to best support the circular economy and minimize impacts on the environment.”

Shaving products packaging evolves One category BIC has recently been focusing on is its shaving products. The company is in the process of evolving the packaging for its entire shaver line to feature only recyclable materials. Thus far, in the U.S., it has transitioned seven of its razor varieties and complementary replacement blades from blister packs to paperboard hang-tag cartons made from 80% recycled content. These include the Hybrid Comfort 3, the Hybrid Flex3 Titanium, the Hybrid Flex4 Titanium, the Hybrid Flex5 Titanium, the Click 3 Soleil, the Click 4 Soleil, and the Click 5 Soleil.

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To hold the razor inside the carton, BIC has designed a recyclable paperboard insert made from 80% recycled content. Replacements blades are held in place using a paperboard wedge, also made from 80% recycled material.

Says Choulet of BIC’s decision to go with paperboard, “We explored multiple options for material for our packaging and chose the option that could both perform at our standards and align with our sustainable development goals.”

In addition to eliminating plastic from the packaging for its razors and blades, BIC has also made changes to the plastic used for several of its razor products.

The Hybrid Comfort 3 and the Hybrid Flex3 Titanium now come with a handle made from 90% recycled plastic, while the Click 3 Soleil and Click 4 Soleil both have a handle that uses 30% recycled plastic.

up of at least 50% recycled material. For example, the BIC ReVolution Ocean Retractable Ball Pen is made from 73% recycled ocean-bound plastic. Ocean-bound plastic, BIC explains, is plastic material that is collected within 50 km of a shore or a waterway that leads to the ocean, preventing it from entering the ocean. Other examples include the new BIC ReVolution Round Stic Ball Pen, which contains 74% recycled plastic, and the BIC ReVolution Mechanical Pencil, made with 65% recycled material.

Products in the BIC ReVolution line are packaged in recyclable paperboard cartons made from 100% recycled material.

These changes are also being rolled out in Europe, and combined, they are expected to reduce plastic packaging consumption by more than 200 tons in 2021. Advises Choulet, “We will continue to evolve our product and packaging portfolio across categories later this year and beyond to meet our ongoing goals.”

Of consumers’ response to the changes, Choulet says it’s still too soon to tell. He adds, “We do know that consumers are looking for brands to provide more options that are made with recycled materials or are recyclable, so we are hopeful they will appreciate and support the changes and investments we are making to our business and our product lines.”

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Several sustainability routes for stationery Another area where BIC has recently made some significant sustainability strides is its stationery line.

In April, the company announced the launch of BIC ReVolution, the brand’s first full range of eco-friendly stationery items, including ball pens, mechanical pencils, permanent markers, and correction tape.

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In addition, the paperboard packaging used for all products in the BIC ReVolution line is made from 100% recycled content and is entirely recyclable.

Said Mary Fox, General Manager of BIC North America, when announcing the new line on April 13, “We know today’s consumers are craving more options for recycled or recyclable products they can use every day. This Earth Day, we’re proud to launch the BIC ReVolution line VibFeedersAd.qxp_Layout 1 products, 2/12/21 12:37 PM Page of stationery continuing BIC’s1deeply rooted commitment to

supporting the circular economy and transforming how we use plastic to better help serve the next generation.”

Other recent sustainability advancements in the stationery category include the introduction of the Cristal Re’New Metal pen, a refillable pen launched in Europe in April that’s packaged entirely in paperboard, and a move from plastic pouches to paperboard boxes for some products. Says Choulet, “In the U.S., the plastic pouch of the BIC Cristal 10pack has been replaced by a 100% recyclable paperboard carton, which

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Available through the Loop circular shopping platform in Europe are three BIC products with either refill cartridges or durable, reusable packaging.

Pictured top right is the Loop wrap in which the products are packed for delivery will save 25 tons of plastic over one year.”

To promote the recycling of its used stationery products, in 2011 BIC partnered with TerraCycle in Europe to collect and recycle fully-used pens, mechanical pencils, markers, and other stationery products and parts of packaging. In 2019, the program was opened up to consumers in Australia and New Zealand, and in 2020, to the U.S. market. For every shipment of used stationery products collected and sent to TerraCycle through the BIC Stationery Recycling Program, collectors earn points that can be donated to a school or charitable organization of their choice. To date, the program has resulted in 54 million pens being recycled between these four countries.

In another partnership with TerraCycle, BIC entered the reusable space in 2019 when it joined the Loop circular shopping platform in France, which was created by TerraCycle. Through Loop France, consumers can purchase a BIC Gel-ocity Illusion gel ink pen and cartridge, a BIC Criterium mechanical pencil and box of six lead refills, or a box of 10 coloring pencils in a durable, reusable box, and when finished with the product, return the empties to Loop. “For BIC, it’s a unique opportunity to experiment with a new circular business model: selling how long one can write with our products, rather than the product itself,” says the company.

BIC’s work is ‘far from over’ Partnerships, such as the one BIC enjoys with TerraCycle, are critical to moving its sustainability initiatives forward. In March 2020, the company announced it had joined the CE100 Network, a global circular economy network created by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Through CE100, BIC now has the opportunity to collaborate with more than 100 companies, governments, academics, and innovators to identify solutions to support the transition to a circular economy.

Said Thomas Brette, Group Insights & Innovation Officer at BIC, at the time of the announcement, “We are thrilled to join the CE100 Network and to work with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and other partners to support the transition to the circular economy. BIC products are lightweight and long-lasting: some deliver more than 2 km of writing, up to 3,000 flames, and 17 shaves. But there is still more to be done. Joining other global brands, governments, and experts in the CE100 will help us identify new ways to use fewer materials, experiment with recycled or alternative materials, make more refillable products, and improve and test the recyclability of our products and packaging.”

Concurs Choulet, “Our work is far from over. Over the next few years, consumers will see more BIC products in reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging. At the same time, our R&D teams are continuing to look for new opportunities to further reduce the environmental footprint of our products.” PW

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AUTOMATION

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Bringing Flexibility to Breakpack Production Advanced controls let this maker of banding equipment bring a whole new level of quickchange flexibility to manufacturers delivering ‘breakpacks’ to their retailer customers.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Servo technology

Simplifying changeover

Watch a video of the AP-25 in action at pwgo.to/7325 CE Madison Banders has introduced its advanced AP-25, a servo-controlled collating and banding solution. The AP-25 automatically creates stacked bundles of individual packages and then bands them with low-cost stretch wrap.

The AP-25 represents the OEM’s first major deployment of servo motor and controls technology from Festo. But before diving into how the controls components make their contribution, it helps to understand that this machine produces what’s known as “breakpacks.” Here’s how breakpacks fit in, using cartoned 100-count aspirin bottles as an example.

Retailers have figured out how many packages of aspirin are sold in a store per day. So suppose Walmart has determined that a store sells six 100-count aspirin bottles per day. Walmart doesn’t want that store getting a case of 24 loose units of aspirin. It wants a 24-count case holding four six-count breakpacks inside so that store personnel can efficiently grab six units to replenish a shelf. Often it’s paperboard or

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Individual units are fed into the AP-25 bander (above) by the infeed conveyor on the left, while banded breakpacks exit on the discharge conveyor on the right. Inset left shows a finished breakpack. corrugated that’s used to hold the six units in the breakpack. What Madison Banders has come up with is a machine that automatically collates the cartons and forms breakpacks using stretch wrap instead of using paperboard or corrugated.

Keep in mind that while Walmart might want a six-count breakpack, Target may want four-count, and CVS might want threecount. And that’s where Festo came in. Servo-controlled changeover from one format to another takes just minutes. This comes in mighty handy for a contract manufacturer, for example, who supplies Walmart, Target, and CVS, because it lets them efficiently process a high mix of breakpack formats. This lowers labor costs and boosts throughput, both

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of which contribute to greater profitability. Plus the stretch film used by the AP-25 for banding reduces the cost of consumables compared to paper or polypropylene banding materials.

Typically the AP-25 would be situated on a packaging line downstream from the aspirin bottle cartoner. To change over from one breakpack format to another, an operator simply selects the size of the units being bundled and the bundle configuration on a touchscreen and the AP-25 changes its configuration. Synchronization of Festo C Model CMMP four-axis servo-controlled motors makes changeover between package and stack configuration fast with less stress on the motors than typically found in multi-motor solutions. Less stress lengthens service life of these costly components. Stack size ranges from a small 3- x 3- x 1-in. bundle to a large 12- x 11- x 8-in. bundle. Once formed into stacks, bundles are routed through the automated bander and exit the machine with neatly banded breakpacks ready for case packing.

The most technically challenging design element of the AP-25 was the four-axis servo-controlled stacking system, says Jason Kenney, President of Madison Banders. “Many times multi-motor servo systems are not properly synchronized. This lack of synchronization means the motors work harder, which shortens their service life. We wanted harmonious coordination of the motors.”

To help with this system, Kenney worked closely with Festo Electric Automation Business Development Specialist Neil Burgard. Burgard calculated the torque curves, performed the speed analysis, specified the Festo motors, and designed the communication system linking the PLC to the servo system. Burgard also trained Kenney’s team on how to program the drives.

Festo prepares kits of the servo system for the AP-25 so that all the parts arrive in a single box with a unique part number. “All we have to do is enter that part number and Festo sends us the kit,” said Kenney.

“It’s all very efficient. This level of transparency of part availability and shipment times shortens the design process and lowers our inventory requirements,” said Kenney. “Festo core products are going to be available for years, so we don’t have to worry about obsolescence.” Kenney discovered that the cost of Festo products is competitive to what he paid for similar products and in some cases less. He found the quality high and if there was a problem with a component, Festo shipped a replacement with no questions asked.

Madison Banders uses both pneumatic and electric motion on the AP-25. In the past when a pneumatic valve manifold was designed, the engineering team prepared a detailed spreadsheet of parts, sent it to the distributor, and waited for a reply as to whether all the parts were available. When the parts came in, the team assembled the manifold.

Kenney now uses Festo online engineering tools. “I design a valve manifold in about five minutes,” he says. “When the manifolds arrive—and they arrive quickly—units have been assembled and tested. It’s a slick process that saves us a lot of time, especially high-cost engineering time.”

The first AP-25 was delivered to a customer in three months rather than the six to nine months it would have taken if the old processes were still in place. Engineering overhead was lower, and the company carries less inventory due to fast, assured shipment from Festo.

“OEMs are always looking for ways to keep costs in check without sacrificing the quality or capabilities of their product,” Kenney said.

“The Festo partnership ticked every one of these boxes.” —Pat Reynolds

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Breakthrough in Compostable Film Management at this family-owned third-generation producer of classic British sausages is hoping its efforts on the sustainable packaging front will be copied globally.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Commitment to sustainability

Machine/material compatibility

By Pat Reynolds, VP Editor Emeritus Charles Baughan is the third-generation owner of Westaway Sausages Ltd. in England’s southwest county of Devon. His sausages are made the same day the meat arrives at his facility and have a refrigerated shelf life of about 11 days. For the past four years or so, Baughan has been on a mission to find packaging with a better sustainability profile than the thermoformed tray and materials traditionally used for cling films such as PVC or LDPE. He explains the urgency this way.

Freshly wrapped paperboard trays of fresh sausages emerge from the cling film application system.

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“There are over 400 million packs of meat products sold in the U.K. every year packed in plastic trays wrapped in films that cannot be easily recycled. I hope this ground-breaking innovation by our small team will challenge the whole sector. Here in South West England we live in a wonderful part of the world, and we know that packaging does not always end up where it should. We feel strongly that doing nothing is not an option.”

Baughan’s search for more sustainable packaging came to fruition in two stages. In 2017 there was a switch out of thermoformed plastic trays in favor of paperboard, specifically a 745-micron natural coated kraft, wrapped in traditional cling film. Then, in April of 2020, Westaway replaced the cling film with a three-layer blown coextrusion from Fabbri Group called Nature Fresh that is certified as compostable according to the UNI EN 13432 Standard in both home and industrial settings. “We are the first ones in the world using Nature Fresh for meat products,” notes Baughan. He also proudly adds that the package was named Innovation of the Year in the U.K. Packaging Awards 2020 sponsored by Packaging News magazine.

The key to Nature Fresh is an aliphatic-aromatic copolyester called PBAT, or poly[(butyleneadipate)-co-(butylene terephthalate)]. It’s helpful to review just how PBAT came onto the scene, and who better to conduct such a review than Fabbri Group’s Laura Pirondini, PhD, R&D Scientist.

“In the history of biodegradable plastics,” says Pirondini, “aliphatic polyesters have played a key role since the 1970s. However, most of the aliphatic polyesters used commercially for biodegradable materials exhibit serious disadvantages, beginning with their cost. In addition, material properties are often limited, which excludes these materials from many applications. On the other hand, aromatic polyesters such as polyethylene terephthalate or PET are widely and successfully used for a variety of conventional applications, largely because their performance properties are excellent and they are not cost-prohibitive. But these aromatic polyesters are commonly regarded as biologically inert and thus non-biodegradable. This led to the development in the 1990s of aliphatic-aromatic copolyesters, which combine the excellent material properties of aromatic polyesters with the potential biodegradability of aliphatic polyesters. The best known of these aliphatic-aromatic co-

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Clearly visible in this photo is the sustainable packaging messaging that is prominent on the paperboard sleeve as well as on the cling film.

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polyesters is BASF’s ecoflex®, which was commercialized in the late 1990s. The standard grade ecoflex® F is produced from the readily available fossil monomers adipic acid, terephthalic acid, and 1,4-butanediol. Its generic name is poly[(butyleneadipate)-co-(butylene terephthalate)], or PBAT.”

Two PBAT grades used Two grades of PBAT, both from BASF, are used by Fabbri Group in the 16-micron three-layer blown coextrusion made for Westaway. One is ecoflex®, a biodegradable aliphatic-aromatic copolyester based on the monomers noted above. The other is ecovio®, a biodegradable compound tailor-made for cling film applications. It’s based on ecoflex®, but with the addition of additives to provide the cling and antifog properties. Fabbri Group is the only producer of cling film that’s suitable for automatic or manual packaging based on these two BASF resins.

The combination of the two PBAT resins guarantees very good optical properties (transparency and gloss) as well as mechanical properties (tensile strength and puncture resistance). The combination also brings high water vapor permeability, enabling the fresh sausages inside to breathe, and good printability with compostable inks. Needless to say, all food-contact requirements are met.

“The outcome is a cling film that fits neatly into the overall composting process, effectively contributing to the Circular Economy and providing a resulting compost that is suitable for plant growth,” says Michele Govoni, Country Manager for U.K. and Ireland at Fabbri Group-Automac U.K. “Also, its machinability, extensibility, and toughness make it suitable for both automated cling film wrapping machines or application by hand. And thanks to Nature Fresh’s transparency and gloss, shelf impact is optimized, too.”

Certainly worth noting is that as flexible film converters go, Fabbri Group may be in a class of its own for one simple reason. They also build the cling film machinery—in this case a highproductivity Automac Industrial machine, part of the innovative “Fabbri Hybrid” range—on which Westaway wraps its sausage-filled paperboard trays. (Fabbri says its Hybrid range accepts either traditional cling films or the newer compostable films, which eases the transition to compostable films without needing specialized packaging equipment.) It’s partly because Fabbri Group is also a machine builder that they were able to produce a compostable cling film suitable for use on automated equipment in the first place. After all, if your technical experts are collaborating on developing not only a breakthrough cling film but also the machine on which it has to run, you have a considerable advantage. Still, bringing Nature Fresh to the market was no walk in the park.

“We had to work hard on the Nature Fresh coextrusion process and to optimize the especially challenging winding process,” says Pirondini. She adds that the supplier of Fabbri Group’s coextrusion line is the Italian worldwide leader Costruzioni Meccaniche Luigi Bandera. “It was a project

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that started in 2015,” continues Pirondini, “and its worldwide debut in a commercial application didn’t take place until 2020. It was five years of intense and collaborative R&D and testing conducted jointly by BASF and us. One particular challenge had to do with cling properties. PBAT is designed to be a strong and flexible material with mechanical properties similar to LDPE, and that’s why ecovio® and ecoflex® can be melt-processed on standard polyolefin equipment. But due to the cling properties of ecovio®, the winding section is not so easy to manage.”

RE-FLOW ACCUMULATION CONVEYOR

Largely packed by hand Baughan says that because some 40 different sausages are produced and packaged at Westaway, automating the loading of trays would be difficult. So operators currently erect the paperboard trays by hand and load them right at the infeed of the Fabbri Group wrapping machine. Common formats include a six-count wrapped tray in a windowed paperboard sleeve and a 16-count wrapped tray in a partial paperboard sleeve. One improvement being looked at, says Baughan, is a tray erector that could perhaps be positioned right in line with the wrapper, since the wrapper is designed to be easily integrated in most packaging lines.

While Westaway’s use of Nature Fresh is relatively new, the firm has been a user of flexible film packaging from Fabbri Group for some time. “When I heard what they were doing with PBAT, I was eager to explore it,” says Baughan. “We produce half a million sausages a day, which are sold through both foodservice and retail channels. As we started looking at alternatives to PVC stretch film, we considered polyethylene because at least it’s something that can be recycled. But shelf life is not as good as with PVC, and if PE is not collected and sorted properly, it just doesn’t make its way into the recycle stream.”

When asked about the cost of Nature Fresh, Baughan acknowledges that it comes at a slight upcharge due to the higher cost of the raw materials. But the paperboard tray now used costs less than the thermoformed trays used in the past. Naturally, the cost of packaging materials is something Baughan keeps an eye on. But also an important element is consumer response, and he says sales are up about 30% since Nature Fresh started reaching store shelves.

As for messaging aimed at consumers, the paperboard carton carries this copy in a prominent top-of-carton spot: “100% Recyclable or Compostable Packaging. Certified EN13432 Compostable film #LetsCutPlastic.” Nature Fresh can also be printed with compostable inks, so Baughan recently asked Fabbri Group to add similar messaging right on the cling film, and packages now reaching consumers have this messaging printed on the film. This helps consumers to handle the film in the proper way after usage and can facilitate the process of automatic waste sorting too.

Two last notes on Nature Fresh. For the most part it’s a cling film for fresh refrigerated products, so it needs no gas barrier properties because it’s not meant to be used “Why,” asks third-generation sausage maker for MAP or vacuum-skin packages that have Charles Baughan, “has it taken our relatively extended shelf life. But Pirondini says that Fabbri Group is finalizing a new compostable small Devon company to lead the way in solution for this extended-shelf-life segment the U.K. in developing what we hope will of the market. Second, when Westaway’s become an industry standard?” sausages are shipped to distant markets, the packs are frozen, and the cling film withstands these temperatures without becoming brittle.

And Westaway’s Charles Baughan? He remains a man on a mission. But where once his mission was to find a compostable cling film, his new goal is to broaden the use of that film. “Large corporations and supermarket chains have had the same opportunity to do something about the problem,” he points out. “Why has it taken our relatively small Devon company to lead the way in the U.K. in developing what we hope will become an industry standard?” PW

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RTD Coffee Package Uses 30% Chemically Recycled PP International dairy products company Emmi transitions to packaging with 30% rPP from chemical recycling for its Caffè Latte line of RTD iced coffee drinks in the U.K., becoming the first in the category to do so.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Chemical recycling

Recycling technology

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor Emmi AG is a Swiss milk processor and dairy products company headquartered in Lucerne. The 110-plus-year-old international group manufactures a range of products, including cheese, yogurt, milk, ready-todrink coffee beverages, and ice cream treats, for its own brands, as well as for private-label customers.

Beginning in September 2021, Emmi began offering its Caffè Latte RTD iced-coffee line in the U.K. in packaging made with 30% chemically recycled PP. Like many of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies, Emmi has put sustainability at the center of its corporate strategy.

In the area of packaging, it has set a target of 100% recyclability by 2027, with 30% of its packaging made from recycled-content material by that same year. But—also like many other CPGs—Emmi is facing an uphill battle when it comes to sourcing the quality and quantity of recycled plastic material it will need to meet its recycled-content goals.

Until recently, the only source for recycled plastic resin was through traditional mechanical recycling. While this technology works well for plastics such as PET and high-density polyethylene, used respectively

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for packaging applications such as water bottles and milk jugs, it can’t handle mixed plastic waste, multilayer flexible packaging, and other difficult-to-recycle materials. Mechanical recycling is also limited in its ability to produce plastics with the same characteristics as its virgin counterparts, meaning that very few of these materials are approved for food-contact applications. It also means much of the material ends up being downcycled, incinerated, or landfilled.

But the advent of chemical recycling is beginning to change that.

Viewed as complementary to mechanical recycling processes, chemical recycling—or advanced recycling—breaks plastics down into their building blocks and transforms them into valuable secondary raw materials that can be used to produce new chemicals and plastics with the same quality as those made from petroleum.

Although chemical recycling is still in its infancy and though most of the companies producing plastics from this process are still in the pilot phase, packaging made from chemically recycled plastic is beginning to show up on store shelves—albeit on a limited scale. Among the CPGs pioneering this new material is Emmi, which, by incorporating Borealis’s Borcycle™ C chemically recycled polypropylene into its packaging, has become the first brand in the RTD coffee category to use this material.

First in category for cPP Emmi’s Caffè Latte brand is a line of “barista-quality” RTD iced coffee drinks in a range of flavors, such as Skinny, Macchiato, Cappuccino, and Vanilla. Packaging is an injection-molded polypropylene cup in two sizes—230 and 370 mL—with a PP lid and PET shrink sleeve, supplied

by Greiner Packaging.

Beginning in September 2021, Emmi began offering its Caffè Latte line in the U.K. in packaging made with 30% chemically recycled polypropylene, or circular PP (cPP). Benedicht Zaugg, who is responsible for Sustainable Packaging at the company, says, “Emmi Caffè Latte is our strongest brand, and we wanted to be the first mover and driver in the category. In addition, the main target group of this brand also has a strong affinity for sustainability issues and appreciates appropriate measures.”

The cPP is supplied by polyolefins producer Borealis and is converted into cups by Greiner Packaging. Explains Zaugg, Greiner Packaging has

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Borealis’s circular cascade model sits at the heart of its ambition to achieve a truly circular economy, by combining carefully chosen technologies in a complementary and cascading way to achieve full circularity. supplied Emmi with packaging for its products, including its Caffè Latte line, for many years. “In the past, we have often worked together to find solutions to optimize our packaging and make it more sustainable,” he says. “Borealis is an important partner within our supply chain. With this project, we had a very intensive exchange.”

Because the supply of cPP is limited, Zaugg says the U.K. was chosen as the first market in which to release the packaging. “We decided to go for a ‘closed’ market like the U.K. to avoid complexity and to move forward quickly,” he says. “We also started with the U.K. because the use of recyclates in packaging is likely to be rewarded there in the future.”

Transformational recycling technology The cPP used in Emmi’s packaging, Borcycle C, is part of Borealis’s Borcycle portfolio of what it calls “transformational recycling technology solutions,” which also includes its Borcycle™ M brand of mechanically recycled polymers. As part of its line of circular solutions, the Austria-based company also offers the Bornewables™ portfolio of plastics manufactured with renewable feedstocks.

As Trevor Davis, Head of Marketing, Consumer Products at Borealis, explains, the company’s strategy for recycled materials begins with mechanical recycling. Borealis operates three mechanical recycling plants in Europe: one focused on polyethylene in Wildon, Austria, one focused on PP in Niedergebra, Germany, and one in Lahnstein, Germany—a pilot plant developed in partnership with Tomra and Zimmerman— focused on advanced mechanical recycling of both PE and PP. The Lahnstein plant, which processes both rigid and flexible post-consumer plastic, uses advanced technology to produce high-purity, low-odor, high product-consistency recycled materials for use in demanding ap-

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plications in industries such as automotive and consumer products.

“But we can’t recycle all the feedstock we get, so as a next step, we see it’s going to take a lot of different options to be able to increase the amount we can recycle,” says Davis. “And here we have a portfolio approach where we’re looking to not just mechanically recycle, but to chemically recycle as well.”

Borcycle C is produced by Borealis from chemically recycled feedstock supplied by several partners, including Austria-based OMV, which is a majority shareholder of Borealis, and Renasci N.V., a Belgian company that Borealis recently purchased a 10% stake in. The companies produce the feedstock through their ReOil and plastics-to-chemicals (PTC) technologies, respectively.

At OMV’s ReOil plant at its Schwechat Refinery in Austria (located just across the street from Borealis’s polyolefin production facility), the company processes mixed plastics like polyolefins or polystyrene—for example, wrappers or cups. When OMV receives the post-consumer plastics, they are already presorted and shredded into flakes. In the first phase of the ReOil process, the solving phase, OMV feeds the flakes into its process cycle using an extruder that melts the plastic at the same time.

As Michaela Fraubaum, OMV’s Senior Technical Expert, explains in an article from OMV, “Plastic is a poor heat conductor, in effect it almost insulates itself. So it’s not that easy to heat large quantities. This is one of the greatest challenges of chemical recycling: How do I get the thermal energy in? Melted plastic is also very viscous, almost like honey, making it exceedingly difficult to transport through pipes.”

To address this challenge OMV uses an intermediate product, a solvent, produced during another process in the refinery. “This means it’s already on-site, and we don’t need to procure it separately,” Frau-

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integrates multiple waste treatment technologies—mechanical, therbaum explains. “This solvent blends into the plastic and thins the crude mal, and chemical—under one roof, enabling maximum material and enough for it to pass through the pipes.” energy recovery.

In the next phase, cracking, thermal energy breaks the plastic’s long At Renasci’s Ostend, Belgium, facility, the SCP process begins when hydrocarbon chains into shorter ones. Says Fraubaum, while crude mixed waste streams are fed to a fully automated sorting line that sepaand plastic are actually composed of the same chemical elements, the rates them into different material fractions, such as plastics, organics, chains of molecules vary in length and have different structures. “In the and metals. Plastics are then separated further into recyclable and nonrefinery, we have lots of experience with cracking processes, as many recyclable materials. Rigid plastics, such as HDPE and PP, are mechanirefinery processes rely on cracking. From a chemical perspective, plastic cally recycled, while non-recyclable materials such as multilayer films is an ideal cracking medium as it contains so many hydrogen atoms. We are chemically recycled. Using its plastics-to-chemicals (P2C) chemical are talking here about the so-called H/C ratio, i.e. how much hydrogen recycling process, Renasci breaks down polymers into a pyrolysis oil that is contained relative to carbon. This is very good for plastic. That’s why can be used as a feedstock for the production of virgin plastics. The relatively little residual material is left over, and a high product yield is main byproduct of the process is then used as fuel to generate electricachieved. Basically, we have been able to apply our previous know-how ity for the facility. to develop the process and operate it.”

The remaining non-plastic materials, made up of organic materiIn the third and final step, flashing, any substance that has a sufals and metal, are each handled separately to extract the maximum ficiently short chain is separated off to be processed in the refinery and value. For example, good quality paper and cardboard are recycled and used again as a basis for high-quality plastics. Any substances having returned to the market, while the non-recychains that are still too long go through clable organic fraction is processed via hythe ReOil cycle again. Various intermediate The ReOil process puts used drothermal conversion (HTC) into hydro char steps involve separating additives such as plastics that could otherwise not pellets that can be used for fuel. Ferrous and coloring or stabilizers or fillers added during the production and processing of the plas- be recycled—or at least not into non-ferrous metals are removed and sold as materials. tic. Purging these additives yields a synthetic products of the same quality— rawSays Davis, “We’ve taken a minority stake crude that can be used to make plastic of back into the production cycle. in Renasci because we have a similar mindthe same quality as virgin plastic. set of looking to see what we can mechaniConcludes Fraubaum, “The ReOil process cally recycle, in addition to what we can chemically recycle.” puts used plastics that could otherwise not be recycled—or at least not The SCP facility began operation in September 2020, with a maxiinto products of the same quality—back into the production cycle. This mum capacity of 35 tons per day. By the end of 2021, Renasci plans to makes us the perfect complement to mechanical recycling while also double that capacity to 70 tons per day. facilitating a genuine circular economy for plastics, just like with wastepaper, for example. In fact, it’s even better as, unlike paper recycling, the ReOil plastic suffers no drop in quality. An old potato chip wrapper really can become a new yogurt pot, an IV bag, or even a car bumper— Of importance to note, the chemically recycled material used for all high-quality plastic products.”

Emmi’s Caffè Latte cup consists entirely of ISCC (International SustainOMV’s ReOil pilot plant opened in 2018 and can process 100 kg of ability & Carbon Certification) material, on a mass balance basis. Mass used plastics per hour to produce 100 L of synthetic crude. A plant the balance is a methodology that makes it possible to track the amount next size up is already in the pipeline. It will be a ReOil prototype, also and sustainability characteristics of circular and/or bio-based content in the Schwechat Refinery. It’s scheduled to begin operation by year-end in the value chain and through each step of the process. This provides 2022, with a capacity of 16,000 metric tons per year. Ultimately, the transparency, ultimately even to the consumer, signaling to them the OMV ReOil process will be developed into a commercially viable, indusamount of recycled content being used in the product or packaging trial-scale technology by 2025, when it is set to process up to 200,000 they are purchasing. metric tons of used plastics per year.

According to Bettina Carow, Global Category Manager Plastics, for Says Davis, “For us in Europe, there is quite a bit of infrastructure Greiner Packaging, given that recycled PP for food-grade applications is around the collection of post-consumer material. The next bit though only available with the mass-balance approach, the resulting material is that we need to scale up the size of the plants that can handle that functions just like virgin PP, which made the transition to 30% cPP for feedstock to produce the feedstock for the next step in the process.” the Emmi cup quck and seamless.

Borealis’s Davis agrees: “One key benefit of Borcycle C is that projects can come together quickly as the material is a drop-in solution. In this case, Greiner Packaging and Emmi were already working with Borealis, Renasci takes a different approach to chemical recycling, and to the and things moved fast once all parties were aligned.” circularity of plastics in general, with its Smart Chain Processing (SCP) Emmi plans to use 100 metric tons of cPP per year initially, for apconcept. Says Davis, “With both partners [OMV and Renasci] part of the proximately 17 million cups, for its Caffè Latte product. As large, induskey is that it’s going to take different routes and different paths to tackle trial quantities of the material become available, the company says it both the waste and the CO2 challenges we face.” will continue to expand its use of recycled materials in its cups and in Said to be the first initiative worldwide able to adapt to the local the European market as quickly as possible. PW situation and specific input and output needs, Renasci’s SCP concept

Drop-in makes transition seamless

Integrated waste treatment technologies

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Each of the following market-leading companies* participating in Packaging World’s 2021 Leaders in Packaging Program are named sponsors of PW’s Future Leaders in Packaging scholarship. This year’s recipient is Purdue Northwest (PNW), College of Technology. We appreciate the support of all participants on behalf of packaging education.

M *These logos represent some of the recent Leaders in Packaging Participants. Sponsor recognition will alternate every other month. ©2021 PMMI Media Group

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Syrup Capper, Reject System Prevents a Sticky Situation Quebecois syrup producer Nokomis Maple Products had a big fill inconsistency and reject problem that often made a sticky mess. An easy-to-use new capper with advanced inspection features made a big difference in reducing rejects and keeping things moving.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Automation reduces rejects

Inspection as additional QC

By Matt Reynolds, Editor Nokomis Maple Products of Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, Canada, works with more than 100 maple syrup producing families who, generation after generation, carry on a profession that they learned from their ancestors. The Bas-Saint-Laurent area these families call home is characterized by a harsh climate and sugar maple forests of remarkable purity, and it’s one of the most northerly places in the world to produce maple syrup. With this quality of raw ingredient, Nokomis says it offers its customers the guarantee of a real product from Quebec.

To deliver that quality product to end consumers, Nokomis offers its private label, store brand, and foodservice customers a range of container sizes. Offerings span from glass bottles with integral handle between 189 and 250 mL, The vision and sensor cap inspection system on the Secure Chuck Capper ensures accuracy. “solitude bottles” of 250 mL, and larger PP jugs between 500 mL and 1 L. Depending on bottle size and application, PP eventually meeting with three machine builders to make the final secaps from Berry Cap, Pano Cap, Mold-Rite Plastics are used to close lection. The company decided to replace the old capper with a Secure the bottles. But recently, problems arose with the automated applicaChuck Capper from BellatRx, who immediately won Vince More, VP at tion of those caps and closures.

Nokomis over with “an impeccable welcome, a solid experience for this type of machine, the fact that the Secure Check Capper is very compact, easy to adapt for changeovers, and [exhibits] excellent reliability,” he says. Plus, he adds, it’s easy to operate.

The company uses a filling machine with six volumetric filling heads.

As part of the installation, Nokomis also specified a camera inspecWhile the same amount of syrup is filled to each bottle during any given tion system to inspect both cap placement and fill level. A vision system production run, there’s a natural, bottle-to-bottle variation in fill height is implemented to detect any capping discrepancies and reject them. that is explained by slight differences in the containers’ internal vol100% of cap inspection is done before bottles are allowed to leave the umes. And while that shouldn’t necessarily create a problem, Nokomis capper conveyor. Additionally due to the ability of the vision to see the operators were seeing a lot of rejects—more than 5%, in fact—due to fill level, the company implemented a fill level verification to capture an inefficient spindle capper used to torque on the caps that sits directly discrepancies from the filling as well. downstream from the filler. The legacy capping system’s six mechanical Nokomis also added an automatic, progressive reject system. Noclosers and two pneumatic clamping wheels left little room for operakomis operators believe they arrived at the ideal solution for rejecting tors to measure or make adjustment to address the problem. missing-cap bottles that can easily tip over and contaminate the whole To bring that high reject rate down to acceptable levels, Nokomis packaging line with sticky, viscous maple syrup. The key was the abiloperators researched several potential capper application suppliers,

Solving for capping inefficiency

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tles tipping, which would cause a spill and lengthy downtime for cleanup.

The new capper fits directly into the existing line, with downstream automation including an induction sealer from Sigma CapSeal, an inverting machine from Geninox, labelling equipment from Procepack, and coding and marking from Leibinger.

Results boost production, morale

Discreet adjustment points allow for quick changeover. ity to reject non-conforming bottles, whether due to cap application or fill level variance, without causing the containers to tip over and spill their content. The progressive reject system was developed and implemented to meet this challenge

Watch a brief video of the closure and reject system in action at pwgo.to/7305 “Previously, all rejection detection was done at the end of the line during the final quality control,” More says. “From now on, this automatic rejection system allows us to remove from the line a large part of the bottles with defects and improves the quality of the finished product. It is as if we had added another step of quality control. This avoids many problems downstream, especially at the inversion stage, because most of the bad caps are removed during this check.”

Also, within the system, recipes and setup charts were developed for the customer’s formats. Discrete locations for tooling are incorporated to avoid the need for “tweaking” during setup. By snapping tooling into place according to the charts provided operators are ready to go in less than 15 minutes, often in less time.

Conveyors were designed to withstand periodic washdown. All bottle handling and transfers were carefully designed not to cause any bot-

The new installation has resulted in very little rejection, less than 1%, compared to the previous spindle capper. Based on this, More says Nokomis has increased daily throughput by 20%, and now has the potential to increase another 20% over the next year. Perhaps more importantly, the company is now able to relocate employees to other areas of the production floor instead of constantly monitoring a high-reject closure applicator and cleaning up after the attendant messy spills.

“There’s a global workforce challenge,” More says. “The employees are affected by this rework. They are less stressed and feel that they are delivering a better-quality product to his/her colleagues in charge of quality control. There are fewer repetitive operations, less risk of injuries related to repetitive tasks, and increased self-esteem for the technician who feels he/she is adding more value to the organization.” PW

Shown here is the automatic and progressive bottle reject system for capping of liquid products.

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By Dr. R. Andrew Hurley, PhD, Contributing Editor

The Sweet Taste of Packaging I tell my students that while the item inside their package is the commodity, it’s the packaging that provides the value (while protecting, containing, and providing utility of use, of course). However, when confronted with options for packaging, many of us seem to separate the product from the package and focus on cost reduction. My goal is to demonstrate that packaging is so valuable that selecting the best design, versus the best price, will increase revenue, improve product quality, and positively influence the emotions of consumers.

You may have heard about the famous taste tests featuring the same beverage in a paper cup, an aluminum can, a glass bottle, and a plastic container. Reactions to the flavor of that beverage in each of the different containers vary wildly, which makes sense because the materials are very different and have their own associated taste when pressed against our lips. We’ve all likely experienced the difference in taste ourselves across the beverages we consume within vessels of various materials.

I propose that the simplest elements of packaging influence your evaluation of the product and even your mood. We all know too well the impact a positive experience or a negative experience can have on your entire day. In the vein of taste, emotion, and packaging, I’ve conducted a couple of research experiments to explore how relatively benign changes to packaging can influence mood and evaluation of the quality of a product.

Last year, one of my graduate students studied emotional

responses to product labels. We purchased commercially produced bottles of kombucha in three different flavors from the same brand and covered up the flavor names so all the bottles looked the same with the exception of the label color: green, yellow, and orange. What participants didn’t know is that the bottles with the green and yellow labels contained the exact same beverage.

In the research study, participants tasted each of the three beverages. They self-reported their preferred flavor on a ballot while their facial expressions were being recorded so that their emotional responses could be evaluated. Interestingly, their self-reported preference was for the green label over the yellow one. This was confirmed by the biometric data when we analyzed their facial expressions and found that the yellow label had a higher probability of eliciting negative emotions. With all other factors being exactly the same, green is a better choice than yellow for this specific product, packaged in this specific bottle, for this specific brand. It’s a powerful thing to understand that something as simple as a spot color can make a product taste different and influence the consumer’s mood.

Let me share another research study with you that supports my theory that packaging can affect value. In this study, we conducted an eggnog taste test with six samples to taste and evaluate: an organic “high-end” brand, a mass-market brand, and a less expensive store brand. The first three cups had their associated packaging behind them; the remaining three samples were the same samples as the first three, but without their associated packaging. The fascinating result is that the participants gave the highest ratings to the “high-end” brand with its associated packaging, but that very same eggnog scored significantly worse than the others when the package was not included. Packaging design can have a major impact not just on perceived value, but on the flavor and product experience as well. You can learn more about the eggnog study at www.PackageInSight.com/Eggnog.

What does this mean for you? When designing your product’s packaging, you might want to consider not just how much it will cost, but how materiality and design strategy influence consumer behavior as well. Even if you don’t produce food products, your packaging influences the likelihood of returns, product expectations, repeat purchases, and ultimately the equity of the brand. Will your packaging decision leave a positive or a negative impression on the consumer’s experience?

Packaging is of vital importance to the success of your product. It’s worth the time and effort to create a design that not only commands attention, but also makes—and fulfills—a promise that this is the best option for your customers’ needs. PW

Dr. R. Andrew Hurley is an Associate Professor at Clemson University. He can be reached at me@DrAndrewHurley.com.

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TECHNOLOGY

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PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE

By Pierre Pienaar, CPP

Effective Packaging in the Circular Economy: A Global View Sustainability is an increasing priority for consumers when making packaging-related decisions, and often is central to a product’s visual appeal. Many articles have been written on this subject and many of us have seen discerning customers in the supermarkets “pondering before purchasing.”

What I have experienced in recent months is that many businesses have yet to prioritize sustainability and circularity when considering the design, use, and disposal of packaging, with the majority of packaging still single-use and non-recyclable. This needs to change, and consumers can force that change to happen more quickly.

Sustainable packaging has been a priority for some brand owners for more than a decade. As we move through the last quarter of 2021, we are seeing appropriate activities that address consumers’ eagerness for brand owners that show the respect for the environment that judicious customers want to see. Consumers’ increased awareness continues to drive the sustainable packaging mission of brand owners. By one estimate, 74% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for products that are packed in sustainable materials.

Circular packaging solutions emerge An encouraging development is that several organizations are attempting to improve this bleak course by investing time and money in the development of more circular packaging solutions.

These leaders are creating solutions where packaging waste is either infinitely reprocessed or can re-enter the system as raw materials for other products. This is a good example of the circular economy in action. This is great news, and not just for environmental reasons.

It helps generate business value as well. Unilever reported in an international study, “a third of consumers are now choosing to buy from brands they believe are doing social or environmental good.”

Recyclable packaging seems to matter most to consumers because recycling is something they can do to contribute. However, in many areas, the business of recycling is struggling, especially in developing countries. This may well force brands to adopt other sustainable packaging options. We need to reach a point where more brands are doing the right thing than not. Once this happens, the pendulum will begin to swing on its own accord.

Several large companies are adopting targets as ambitious as using 100% recycled materials in the production of new packaging and limiting the use of unnecessary virgin materials. Unfortunately, recyclable packaging has some limitations. Collecting packaging at the

end of a product’s useful life to kickstart the recycling process is one of the dominating barriers for organizations, especially for consumer goods companies whose products are used by millions of people around the world every day. Consumers often are unaware of how to take the extra steps needed to recycle or return packaging products, e.g. bottles and cans, or unwilling to change behaviors as there are no clear benefits for doing so.

One of the more prevalent issues is that systems often are not in place to support the recycling process. Generally, consumers want to do the right thing and separate packaging material types at home, but the infrastructure is not available to see the recycling process through creating a circular economy in packaging.

Across the world the deterioration of the environment caused by discarded man-made materials has reached critical levels, with negative impacts on ecosystems. There is no doubt that consumers globally are becoming more environmentally conscious, and it is a matter of course that consumers will drive packaging standards and demand that companies produce packaging that is more environmentally responsible.

Multinational companies have established that in creating better, environmentally acceptable packaging, new revenue streams have been created, offering competitive advantages within the industry.

Strategic thinking needs more support The push for improved design to allow easier recycling is beginning to happen across the globe. It is generally more prevalent in developed countries. A good example of this is a recently implemented World Packaging Organisation (WPO) guided system for packaging recycling in Indonesia, making sure that the industry follows suitable packaging design guidelines to ensure recyclability.

The challenge is to bring many more developing countries into that same strategic thinking. An additional challenge is to ensure more governments around the world embrace this same thinking and philosophy of enhancing packaging design to allow easier recycling.

Packaging around the world needs regulatory support.

We in the WPO encourage this through our WorldStar Awards program (www.worldstar.org). This this is the only global packaging awards program that focuses on encouraging and developing better design, be that recyclability or sustainability, to ensure better quality of life packaging through better packaging for more people. PW

The author, Pierre Pienaar, is President of the World Packaging Organisation, and an IoPP Certified Packaging Professional.

For more information on IoPP, please visit www.iopp.org.

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