The food industry, the main consumer of packaging, is demanding more sustainable solutions within a context characterised by legislative changes and increased environmental awareness among consumers. The challenge: to make packaging compatible with the unwaivable priority of food safety and a reduction of the environmental impact. Hispack devoted a panel discussion to analysing the prospects for the implementation of sustainable packaging in the sector and to pooling some of the innovative experiences that are unfolding.
Moderator:
Pablo Vilanova, Mercabarna’s director of sustainability, innovation and strategy
A cluster of 600 companies that form part of the value chain for the distribution of fresh food produce.
Participants:
Encarna Gómez, head of the product and process technologies department
AINIA Technological Centre
A private technological centre with more than 30 years’ experience in R&D&I that seeks to boost the competitiveness of companies through innovation.
Daniel Olivares, manager of operations
San Jorge Packaging
A Chilean company that’s chiefly devoted to exporting flexible packaging for fresh fruit with active materials to extend the life of the product.
Lorena Contreras, assistant manager of product development
Agrosuper
A holding of Chilean food companies engaged in particular in the production, distribution and marketing of fresh and frozen pork, poultry, salmon and processed products.
Amaya Prat, director of R&D&I and sustainability
Ametller Origen
A business group made up of eleven companies specialising in the distribution of food products.
As an introduction to the session, Pablo Vilanova explained the initiatives being conducted at Mercabarna to achieve the most sustainable packaging possible and outlined the three main challenges that any food packaging must meet while work on the co-existence of the three:
- Ensure food safety.
- Extend the life of the product. This is a particular challenge in the case of fresh produce and products with an initial transformation, such as cut and peeled fruit, which is more perishable than unprocessed fruit. In these cases the functionality of the packaging is even more important.
- Achieve sustainable packaging, not only to meet the company’s own criteria but also due to growing demand among customers and end consumers. According to the Mercabarna spokesman, “if a company wants to sell a sustainable food product, it’s unthinkable to do so with packaging that isn’t sustainable; the packaging must therefore be consistent with the product”.
In addition to these three main challenges, Vilanova recalled that packaging can be of great help in the traceability of the product, offering the customer useful information on it, and it’s a key element in the brand’s visibility.
Sustainable packaging, what should we take into account?
Encarna Gómez – AINIA
Sustainability in packaging is being addressed from different perspectives. One of these is the reduction of fine materials of fossil origin and their replacement by materials from more sustainable sources. In this case we’re referring to bio-materials and bio-plastics.
Another alternative under consideration for the coming years is to replace plastic materials with cellulosic materials. Until now it hasn’t been one of the technologies that the agri-food industry had opted for, but we’ve made progress when it comes to generating barriers in the packaging for these kinds of materials. At AINIA we’re conducting research along these lines by using, for example, lino-cellulosic by-products (pruning waste). At the same time, we’re working on the design of packaging, considering its end-of-life cycle and how it will be recycled, as well as the reuse of food packaging.
Daniel Olivares – San Jorge Packaging
We’re interested in moving towards biodegradable and recyclable mono-materials. The development of materials has to go in the direction of multi-purpose ones, so that the amount of lamination can be reduced and these materials can be incorporated into a conventional recycling line. We also support initiatives that develop materials discarded by industry and organic materials.
The problem we have with some materials is that they aren’t transparent, and with food the product often has to be visible, for example in the case of fruit. In this respect, we have to work on the development of these kinds of materials while ensuring that they’re mono-materials.
Another issue is the regulations. In Latin America the legislation still has a long way to go, as we don’t have a large recycling chain or composting centres, and the challenge lies in identifying how to evolve towards multi-purpose materials that also permit recyclability. This is the way forward for us.
Lorena Contreras – Agrosuper
We’re seeking inspiration in Europe, but it’s a rather slow process; there are lots of confusing concepts such as biodegradability and recyclability, inasmuch as many people don’t know what lies behind each one.
The Law on EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) obliges manufacturers and importers of six priority products in Chile to recover a percentage of them once their useful life is over (in other words, when they become waste), in such a way that each company is responsible for the waste it generates in the environment. It’s a start when it comes to promoting and encouraging measures aligned with greater sustainability, but there’s still a long way to go.
The consumer, a key player
Amaya Prat – Ametller Origin
We’re witnessing growing concern among consumers, particularly with packaging, and we believe that we have to capitalise on this and encourage co-responsibility.
We’ve reviewed our packaging by changing the materials and reducing the wrapping, taking into account the entire life cycle of the material we put into circulation and analysing its subsequent recycling and composting, because each autonomous community has its own particularities.
It’s also very important to explain to the consumer how to recycle the packaging, in other words, which of the containers to place it in; this may seem trivial, but there’s still a lack of information and knowledge in this regard.
Encarna Gómez – AINIA
We currently have recycling plants in Spain that don’t receive enough material for recycling, partly due to a lack of consumer awareness. The work has to be done not only by manufacturers but also by the whole value chain and consumers.
Another interesting issue, apart from recycling, is reuse. In this respect, we have to think about how the materials are going to be cleaned and sanitised for this reuse, in other words, we have to develop materials that can be easily cleaned so as to square the circle.
Innovations that seek to extend the life of the product
Daniel Olivares – San Jorge Packaging
We package melons that travel from Honduras to Europe. Before they’re processed, the melons have a shelf life of 14 days and the transport to Europe alone lasts 20 to 30 days. We therefore need to extend the product’s shelf life by about 40 days for it to be consumed in optimal conditions when it reaches the consumer.
The iconic case is that of the nuts and other dried fruits that are exported from Chile to Southeast Asia and Europe. In these cases, laminated packaging is used to ensure that the products remain fresh, turgid and in optimal condition. By means of our R&D we developed a medium barrier formula allowing us to extend the products’ shelf life from 18 to 24 months, one that’s fully recyclable on a conventional polyethylene line.
The Law on EPR stipulates that by 2030 we must have at least 25% of recycled raw materials in the single-use product matrix, and one of the problems is that lots of materials aren’t classified for contact with food when they’re recycled. The only one that achieves the above on a large scale is PET, and we need to investigate other avenues and options.
Encarna Gómez – AINIA
The attempt to combine sustainability with extending the life of the product is another major challenge, beyond innovative materials when it comes to their processing, in such a way that we can obtain the same characteristics with the new materials as we do with multi-layer materials. It really isn’t very easy to replace multi-layer materials with mono-layer materials, not only in terms of the original packaging of the products but also with regard to other issues such as how they’ll be stored (refrigerated or at room temperature), the processing they’ll undergo, whether they’ll be for direct consumption or fourth-range products and so on. In this respect, there’s a lot of work to be done and there are new options, as we also have hybrid packaging with barrier properties that’s very similar to plastic packaging.
Laws and regulations on waste under discussion
Amaya Prat from Ametller Origen offered her point of view on the recent law on waste passed a month ago and the new regulation currently being drawn up by the Catalan government.
We’ll undergo a difficult transition period. With regard to the Law on waste and contaminated soils, which establishes a tax on virgin plastic, we all want to move towards recycled materials, but they aren’t always within our scope. Moreover, in this case the regulation has moved ahead of the possibility of fully achieving the long-desired circular economy. We need to work towards the use of high-quality recycled plastics. Our stores have a large area devoted to bulk sales.
With regard to the Royal Decree on packaging, we remain expectant, for example, with regard to the ban on the packaging of fruit and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kg. This has to be done with caution, while food waste, which is also a major environmental problem, needs to be reviewed. If the fruit and vegetables aren’t handled properly throughout the value chain, we may be creating a bigger problem than the one we want to resolve.
Cristina Benavides, Hispack partner
