In recent months, Australia has been ravaged by one disaster after another. Drought, fire, floods, and now a pandemic. And every time, without fail, the packaging industry has risen to the challenge of supporting the greater community and innovating in the face of crisis. PKN spoke to Australian Institute of Packaging members who represent different packaging sectors about their response to the current crisis.
As I write this on 9 April, Australia’s states and territories are in various levels of shutdown. We have recorded 6073 cases of Covid-19, and our death toll is at 51. Relative to other nations, we are in a good position. For the most part, Australians have responded well to the federal and state government’s social distancing regulations, and without digging too deeply into the statistical reporting, in simple terms, we are flattening the curve. But it is early days, and the message is clear, conquering this pandemic will come at a huge cost, socially and economically, for all of us.
As a packaging journalist, it has been a privilege to report on the positive response made by so many companies and individuals in our industry in their efforts to not only ensure the safety of their own staff, lend support to their customers and suppliers, and pivot their businesses to solve immediate shortages of supply. The pandemic has highlighted the community’s basic needs for security of supply, food safety and product protection – and in this the packaging industry has a huge role to play.
For Melbourne-based flexible pouch specialist OF Packaging, even before the shutdown was mandated by government, the company had moved quickly to implement new processes and technologies throughout its business to ensure minimal impact to the people involved at all levels of its supply chain.
“We believe some of these changes brought about by necessity will continue to have a long-term, positive influence in the packaging industry with the urgent need for food supplies resulting from the uptake product demands,” Joe Foster, managing director of OF Packaging, says.
“Our company ethos of collaboration has been influential in the face of adversity. It has allowed us to effectively continue our packaging supply in a time where demand for flexible packaging has had an uptick, especially in the local manufacturing sphere."
Foster says the company has been working on multiple packaging innovations it is now expediting, including new coatings and materials that could be useful in the current situation, such as a range of anti-microbial, anti-bacterial and new aseptic packaging innovations.
Like other food packaging suppliers, Sealed Air Australia has an important part to play in rising to the challenge of major demand increases for food packaging and protective packaging to keep supermarkets and e-commerce running.
The company’s priority was establishing a people protection team and then protecting its Australian manufacturing plants’ ability to fulfil unprecedented supply demands, including the implementation of screening measures and new ways of working that safeguard employees and community wellbeing.
Sealed Air Australia implemented a plan treating production sites like fortresses against Covid-19 and securing rapidly increased capacity.
“We have seen an increase in demand of more than 200 per cent for some lines of meat, seafood, and poultry trays. Having manufacturing plants and an avid production team here in Australia has been critical to a quick response to the surge in demand,” says Alan Adams, Sealed Air’s sustainability director, Asia Pacific.
Commenting on a shift in focus around packaging, Adams says: “And what a change in our markets... from pressure to eliminate plastic bags and wrapping fresh produce, to food safety and availability being top of mind for all of us, and Woolworths’ CEO Brad Banducci even being asked by ABC reporters if single-use shopping bags will make a comeback!"
Foster has noted a shift in sentiment too. “It has been interesting to see the shift in public view from packaging sustainability to product protection, shelf life, and safety. This threat has reminded us the true purpose and importance of packaging, and rightfully so – plastic should not seen as waste, but a resource," he says.
“We hope that once this crisis is over, public perception will have changed on issues of sustainability and will no longer perpetuate the unrealistic notion of removing plastic altogether, to instead focusing on improving our waste infrastructure, and working on new innovations that allow us to better collect, recycle and reuse plastic material for packaging applications.”
Another company taking the Covid-19 battle head on is Melbourne-based Caps & Closures. Managing director, Brendon Holmes, says: “The looming threat of infection of Covid-19 sparked mass panic hoarding from the public, resulting in a significant shortage of essential services. Commodities like hand sanitiser and handwash are in enormous demand from the public and other essential services, like our frontline health care providers who are putting their lives on the line.”
Holmes says the company has systematically, and pre-emptively set measures in place to increase production to meet the nation's essential packaging needs.
“Even with the global supply-chain network in crisis, our experienced staff have done great work in managing the influx of emergency orders, production planning and fulfilment logistics. We have committed production round the clock, with careful planning, to support our customers both locally in Victoria as well as interstate to ensure the quick production of essential commodities by their manufacturers. That way, we can get it out to those who need them quickly,” he adds.
Weighing in from Western Australia, Zipform Packaging managing director John Bigley says that after from ensuring all employees are operating safely and healthily, the company’s packaging operations have been business as usual.
“We all still have a job to do to drive innovation that delivers better sustainability solutions and there’s no reason to halt or slow down initiatives to address the 2025 National Packaging Targets,” Bigley says.
“It is clear that packaging has a huge role to play in terms of maintaining the integrity of food supply at a very challenging time and of course, as we all know, packaging plays a vital role in minimising food waste."
Bigley believes issues like food safety and food waste will become more and more front-of-mind for the consumer so the crisis will undoubtedly raise the profile of the packaging industry positively.
“I too am very positive that we will be one of the key industries that will emerge with a stronger public awareness of what we deliver and the role of packaging compared to a lot of the previous negative perceptions around packaging and waste.
“The world will never be the same again and as ultimately we look in the rear-view mirror at the crisis, we will be able to look forward to a bright future as a packaging industry. Packaging is not only fit for the present but undoubtedly fit for the future,” Bigley says.
For global food packaging giant Tetra Pak, whose focus has always been food safety, delivering packaging that ensures community wellbeing is in its DNA.
“Our priority is of course the safety and wellbeing of our people and our customers’ teams who are working relentlessly to produce food and beverages,” says Tetra Pak Oceania marketing director Jaymie Pagdato.
“Next is the absolute focus on uninterrupted supply of our packaging materials and uncompromised services to ensure our customers’ manufacturing lines are running smoothly to help our customers produce and maintain the supply needed.
Based on market observations accessed through its global network, the company says the impacts of Covid-19 on its customers and their brands are playing out as follows:
- The emerging new retail channels are becoming more important – online grocery, meal deliveries are seeing huge rises – both in China and globally.
- Back to basics trend on consumer expenditure – consumers are spending highest on the basic grocery items. Alongside this, significant spikes in hoarding emergency supplies to build what is called a “pandemic pantry”.
- Beyond this crisis, as can be compared to post SARS, consumer preferences will navigate further towards quality of source, immunity boost, nutrition for longevity."
Finally, PKN asked national president of the Australian Institute of Packaging, Carol Kilcullen-Lawrence, for her insights.
She works predominantly in the label industry, and she says, “I became instantly aware that it was very important for our supply chains to remain intact because there was clearly going to be a significant increase in the requirement for labels – and this has proved to be the case.”
Kilcullen-Lawrence notes that as a consumer her purchasing habits have changed. She would previously avoid buying food in packaging but she now finds herself in the supermarket specifically seeking out foods that are packaged. “I deem them much safer than something that could have been touched or somehow come into contact with the coronavirus,” she says.
“In order to go to the shops less frequently, I am now buying packaged frozen and tinned fruits and vegetables that I would never have considered purchasing in the past. And based on the low volumes of these that are available for sale, it seems that many consumers are thinking the same way.”
“This really highlights to me the importance of packaging in saving food and I think it could play an even greater role in the future because once the food has come home from the supermarket we need to think about the fact that the packaging could still have somehow come into contact with the virus," She adds.
"So potentially, it could be an additional safety measure for some additional secondary packaging to be incorporated on products that is designed to be removed prior to foods being put away in the pantry or fridge. That way consumers can be certain that the food packaging in the kitchen has not been handled by anyone and therefore not come into contact with any possible contaminants along the supply chain.”
If ever there was a time for packaging to come into its own, it's now. What’s clear from talking to packaging professionals in Australia and around the globe, packaging's primary role as a protector of the products it contains has taken on a new level of significance. And as we continue to move towards a circular economy and meeting our National Packaging Targets, the value of packaging as a resource will only grow.
