Pact Group has listed 15th in the AFR's Most Innovative Companies list, its highest placing to date in five consecutive years.
The Australian Financial Review’s (AFR) Most Innovative Companies list measures Innovation as “change that adds value”.
This year, the program – now in its sixth year – attracted more than 1000 nominations from Australia and New Zealand. It is judged and compiled by innovation consultancy Inventium.
In 2013, Pact placed 49th, and has made its way up the list every year since: 45th in 2014, 38th in 2015, 23rd in 2016 and 15th in 2017.
Two innovations implemented in the past 12 months at Pact saw the comapny achieve this high listing.
The first was from its Materials Handling division that developed a bespoke RFID enabled Intellicrate and pooling process. This initiative has enabled Australia’s largest retailer to have the most innovative supply chain solution in Australia for fresh produce and the first time in the southern hemisphere that RFID technology has been used in crate pooling.
Over the past 12 months, more than four million Intellicrates embedded with RFID tags have been supplied to fresh produce growers from four world class automated wash facilities commissioned in 12 months. New sanitisation standards and centrifugal drying equipment deliver dryer, more hygienic crates than previous industry standards meeting HACCP requirements.
Pact’s other innovation was from its Contract Manufacturing division for developing an odourless and invisible Outdoor Fly and Mosquito Shield that keeps working for six hours after spraying.The product is sprayed onto a ground surface and emanates at a controlled rate for at least six hours, protecting an area of 25m2 and killing bugs for up to six hours.
This offers an alternative to directly spraying onto skin or devices that spray into the air every 30 seconds that can contaminate food and beverage. No other aerosols continue to work post spraying. This innovation has created a new segment in the category, grown sales and offered export opportunities to China, NZ and Fiji.
