Sustainability, design for circularity, food waste prevention, and packaging digitisation dominate the packaging trends reflected in innovation in this sector. Paul Jenkins of The PackHub writes for PKN.
Sustainability has been a major focus in packaging innovation in recent years due to increasing environmental concerns coupled with a global drive across brand owners, retailers and packaging suppliers to reduce the impact of packaging materials and the waste it generates.
There is strong demand for packaging materials and designs that are more sustainable, both in terms of their overall environmental impact and their ability to be reduced, recycled or reused. Close to 80 per cent of the 1208 initiatives posted to ThePackHub’s Innovation Zone platform in 2022 were directly related to sustainability.
This sustainability drive has led to the development of a wide range of innovative packaging solutions, a trend that will continue into 2023 and beyond.
It may seem that all packaging change is motivated by environmental factors, but this isn’t the case. The global packaging market has also seen activity in the drive to reduce waste through packaging innovation that extends shelf life. We are also continuing to see a steady and growing drive towards digitalisation with expanding uptake of smart packaging solutions that deliver digital connectivity via on-pack activations and assist in track and trace and help reduce pack counterfeiting.
Here I reflect on some of the stand-out innovations that bring to life the trends discussed.
Design for circularity
The goal of design for circularity is to minimise waste and resource consumption by designing products and materials that can be reused and repurposed rather than discarded as waste.
Scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder say they have developed a method of infinitely recycling plastic, creating full circularity for the material. The researchers used “reversible chemistry,” where polymers from plastic were broken down into their original monomer structure, allowing them to be reused. These monomers then serve as basic building blocks, meaning that they could be rebuilt back into polymers for the same product repeatedly. Usually, plastic is mechanically broken down into powders and then burned or bathed in solutions to create small flakes or pellets to be moulded into new products. However, this process does not allow for the same item to be made since the plastic eventually breaks down until it is unusable. Instead of breaking down the plastic, scientists activated “dormant” covalent bonds, allowing traditional polycyanurate thermosets to be recycled into monomers. Is has been reported that current industrial recycling plants would be able to adopt this new chemical method.
Austrian chemical company Borealis has collaborated with two partners to produce flexible packaging products incorporating 50 per cent post-consumer recyclate (PCR). The two parties are flexible packaging manufacturers Plastotechnica, based in Italy, and Finland-based Rani Plast. Both companies are using new low density polyethylene (LDPE) PCR grades developed and produced by mechanical recycling expert Ecoplast, part of the Borealis Group. The move to 50 per cent PCR material reportedly results in a 35 per cent carbon footprint reduction in raw material production when compared to virgin polyolefins, whilst maintaining the same film thickness as virgin materials. The partnership between Borealis, Plastotechnica and its manufacturer of high-tech and flexible bottling and packaging lines, ACMI SpA, has resulted in fully recyclable multilayer collation shrink film with appealing optics and pack stability. Borealis and Rani Plast jointly developed a film structure for more sustainable flexible packaging used for tissue paper products such as kitchen roll and toilet paper.
Preventing food waste
Food waste has a significant environmental impact and packaging has a big role in reducing it. It contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and consumes resources such as water and land to produce. Food waste has an economic impact as well. In the United States alone, it is estimated that food waste costs around US$218 billion per year according to Waste360.
San Francisco start-up Therma is helping businesses to reduce food waste by using sensor technology to monitor temperature and humidity in real time. The system collates information, uploading to the cloud, and interpreting the information to produce reports and, if out of normal ranges, produces alerts for staff to follow up. It is estimated that 85 per cent of product loss in restaurants is due to sub-optimal storage conditions. Its successes so far have been at a full-service restaurant where it has saved US$495 per month in food spoilage and another US$228 per month at a quick service restaurant. The system uses LoRaWan (long-range, low-power radio signal). Alerts prevent food spoilage by sending emails, texts and phone calls when out of specified parameters or identifying potential equipment issues.
The lack of freshness of shrimp can have health implications for consumers. Engineering students from Vishnu Institute of Technology in India recently took part in a Hackathon to create a smart device that identifies spoilt shrimp. The solution sees the development of an advanced food packaging technology that can detect the freshness of shrimp. Consumers do not need to touch the shrimp to check for freshness. The technology sees the attachment of two different sensors to detect ammonia content as well as the temperature inside the pack. A prototype will be ready for market introduction within the next 12 months according to the research team. They hope to launch it for less than Rs250 per unit (£2.83). Work is also ongoing to make the item lighter.
Digitisation
Digitisation of packaging refers to the use of digital technologies in the design, production, and management of packaging materials. This includes digital printing, RFID (radio-frequency identification) and NFC (near field communication) tags, and other technologies to improve the efficiency, traceability, and sustainability of packaging.
German start-up 1Less has launched a range of food service packaging incorporating RFID technology. Each item contains an RFID tag, which means the company can harvest data, and items can be tracked through the entire collection, cleaning and reuse process. According to 1Less, every item can be used 800-1000 times and then fully recycled at the end of its life, with the tag removed and reused again. The point of difference of the 1Less System is the offer of a deposit-free, intelligent and automated smart re-use system for closed environments, making it very straightforward and user-friendly. For every kilogram of 1Less dishware items, it is possible to save 25 kilograms of single-use plastic packaging, resulting in almost 50 times less CO2 emissions. The company says that the system could create an entirely new way to deal with containers and cutlery at sporting events or music festivals.
This article was first published in the January-February 2023 print issue of PKN Packaging News, p16.
