Nestlé has modified its existing equipment to package its new YES! confectionery bars in paper wrapping instead of plastic, without compromising the speed at which bars can be packaged.
Nestlé can package up to five hundred YES! bars each minute on their high-speed production line. This development is aligned with Nestlé’s pledge to achieve 100 per cent recyclability or reusability in their packaging across all their products by 2025.
The newly established Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences has been investigating the use of paper-based materials as well as polymers that are both recyclable and biodegradable.
Plastic packaging is used by companies because it effectively preserves products and maintains quality over time, and it is particularly favoured for wrapping products like confectionery bars because of its material properties. Plastic packaging is especially resilient, malleable and lightweight. However, in recent years, unnecessary plastic use has come under intense scrutiny from an increasingly eco-conscious consumer base.
In response to consumer trends favouring environmentally conscious brands, the industry has seen a revival of paper-based packaging, especially due to paper’s inherent benefits of being naturally renewable, easily recyclable and ultimately compostable.
Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider elaborates on the significance of paper packaging with respect to an urgent global need to reduce plastic waste, “We are determined to look at every option to solve this complex challenge and embrace multiple solutions that can have an impact now. We believe in the value of recyclable and compostable paper-based materials and biodegradable polymers, in particular where recycling infrastructure does not exist.”
Nestlé’s new packaging technology marries the desire for premium quality and a reasonable shelf life, with the desire for an elimination of single-use plastic. Nestlé has assured consumers that their newly developed wrapper, which is solely made of paper and a water-based coating, ensures the same shelf life as plastic wrapping.
Nestlé has exclusive rights to the paper packaging technology with a supplier, whose name is not publicly known.
