Day: July 29, 2021

Lockdown restrictions around the world have had a significant effect on the hospitality industry. While the easing of restrictions earlier in the year in South Africa was welcomed news, the recent level 4 lockdown has meant another devastating setback for restaurants, hotels and more. Drive past your local restaurant scene and you’ll quickly get the picture.

Among the sub-sectors affected is the food service industry that supplies to sit-down and quick-service restaurants and hotels. So what are some of the new trends that have emerged and how are businesses adapting?

Here are four trends to look out for.

1. In times of struggle, comes opportunity

United by a common client base, two food service business units within the Libstar family, Rialto Foods and food packaging business, Multi-cup, have consolidated to adapt to these ever-changing circumstances under the leadership of Derek Couzens, commercial executive of the combined divisions.

Globally, the food service industry has been unable to rely on business continuity over the past 16 months and, amidst the third wave in South Africa and the gradual rollout of vaccinations, it’s clear that we’ll be living with Covid-19 for a while.

He says that brands should focus on agility and responsiveness to new trends and different demands, rather than waiting for “the return to normal.” “With the change in lifestyle limitations, consumer behaviour has also changed. It’s a credit to the combined business that we have been able to operate with a more resilient future-fit approach,” says Couzens.

He explains that getting core business fundamentals right enabled their agility to tap into those trends. “We had to concentrate on the strength of our own supply chain and stock replenishment systems in the midst of supply uncertainties. Disciplined financial processes have also been foundational, as has maintaining our strong presence in the food service channel across multiple food and food packaging categories.”

2. Rise of online ordering, home deliveries

Over the extended periods of hard lockdowns, online ordering and home delivery became a growing route for restaurants and quick-service restaurants to reach consumers. It’s given consumers, who had previously never ventured into online ordering, the opportunity to upskill themselves, adopt new shopping habits and realise the benefits of ordering online.

“The surge and wider scope of online food deliveries brought about increased demand for innovations in food packaging. Multi-cup leveraged opportunities to meet rising demand for various types of food packaging to prevent product damage, enhance sustainability and improve the customer experience,” explains Couzens.

3. Strategic client partnerships, collaboration

Across the Libstar family, the challenging environment has only strengthened relationships with trading partners. Couzens says: “We found ourselves aligning our shared commitment to pivot and deliver consumer value despite the harsh conditions. Rialto Foods’ sharp focus on quality, authentic foods enabled us to help customers develop beverage innovations in the wake of alcohol restrictions, as well as menu innovations better suited to home deliveries and smaller menu offerings.

“An example of this has been the collaborative role played by Rialto in building menus of both cocktails and ‘mocktails’ together with restaurant and bar owners, leveraging the innovations made possible by Rialto’s distribution of the world-leading ‘finest call’ brand of cocktail mixes. It’s been a silver lining of the pandemic, and a privilege to have more opportunities to collaborate so closely and deepen our essential customer relationships as trusted business partners.”

4. Staying the course with the sustainability trend

Not all emerging consumer trends are new, but some have demanded an ongoing commitment during the pandemic. For Multi-cup, with its flagship Precious Planet eco-friendly food packaging range, meeting consumer demand for sustainability has been an ongoing priority.

Trivium Packaging’s 2021 Global Buying Green Report found that fewer than 1 in 3 people de-prioritised sustainable packaging due to Covid-19; 83% of millennial consumers showed a willingness to pay more for sustainable packaging, and sustainable products grew more than seven times faster than products that were not.

Couzens says: “We have seen an increased awareness and consumer demand for environmentally-friendly food packaging, which is likely to continue in growth. Being able to meet this trend through initiatives such as the latest first-to-market innovation, branded compostable bagasse meal-boxes in the quick-service restaurant space has certainly positioned the business well for the future.

“The amendments to the Waste Act increases producer and brand responsibilities when it comes to the management of packaging waste in South Africa and we’ve wasted no time in aligning our product offerings to meet the eco-friendly requirements.”

For both the Rialto Food Service division and Multi-cup, close attention to service levels, ongoing commitment to the highest levels of food safety and hygiene, sound financial management and the flexibility to help customers weather these uncertain times have been key to their survival. “The learnings for our team have been both hard and immensely valuable,” concludes Couzens.

“Across the food service channel resilience is being tested. On the one hand that’s a considerable stress, on the other, it ignites innovations to meet changing demands.”

Source:

https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/532/218396.html

In partnership with Loop, six McDonald’s restaurants in the UK are set to pilot a returnable coffee cup scheme – a ‘world first’ for the company.

For a £1 deposit, customers can choose to have their hot drink in a returnable Loop cup. As a reward, they will receive a 20p discount on their purchase.

Once enjoyed, customers are encouraged to bring their cup back to one of the specific Loop branded collection bins, at participating restaurants, for it to be sent for cleaning and to be used again.

Those that do will receive 20p off their next medium hot drink order – meaning that after five returns and subsequent orders, customers will break even and will continue to receive 20p off every time they pick a Loop cup.

The scheme is available in restaurants and at the drive-through. Customers are able to rent a cup for the duration of their visit and return it at a time that suits them. If a customer forgets their cup at their next visit, they can pay another £1 deposit and return both cups next time.

The cups are made from previous single-use coffee cups by circular design brand Circular&Co. The packs include engineered polypropylene (PP) plastic, as this is durable and easily cleaned, but the amount of plastic has been reduced by using recycled paper cup material in the outer insulation layer.

Alongside saving material, this also gives the cups a unique look and feel. Then, when the reusable cups eventually reach their end-of-life usage they are recycled, with the resulting material being used to make the next batch of reusable cups.

Over the last few years, McDonald’s says that it has saved more than 4000 tonnes of plastic each year by removing plastic Happy Meal toys and by switching from plastic straws, McFlurry lids and salad boxes to what it describes as “more sustainable options”.

The company reports that almost 90% of its packaging comes from recycled or renewable sources, and says that it is working to increase that number.

The Group also plans to move away from plastic wherever possible and, where it does need to use it for safety or functional reasons, it says that it will only use 100% recycled or plant-based plastics.

 McDonald’s also aims to make all its packaging materials fully recyclable or compostable, eliminating waste that must go to landfill.

Source

https://packagingeurope.com/mcdonalds-and-loop-join-forces-on-reusable-coffee-cup-pilot/

The Slovenian Pulp and Paper Institute (ICP) recently presented a corrugated cardboard pack made partly from tomato stems. The tomato stems are from locally sourced agricultural waste that has been  processed into liner and fluting papers suitable for incorporation into corrugated board. We spoke to Igor Karlovits, senior researcher at ICP, to find out more about the potential and upscaling prospects and challenges. 

Could you tell us a bit more about the process of incorporating the tomato stems into the corrugated board? How does it work?

ICP in Ljubljana is deeply engaged in the research on the cascading use of the residual biomass from wood, agriculture and industry (crops and vegetable production, urban green cuts, i.e invasive plants, forestry, wood and paper production, etc). In our database there are more than 60 different streams evaluated for the potential application. 

The initiative for the circular packaging solution by valorisation of the wasted tomato stems started in 2018 in cooperation with the largest tomato producer in Slovenia (trade mark Lušt), based on the idea of replacing of the plastic bags for their products. The chemical and morphological characterization of the tomato stems has proven the quantity and quality of the cellulose fibre being appropriate paper production (over 40% of fibre content, easy to fractionate with traditional kraft delignification processes).

The process of the biomass fractionation, fibre preparation and paper production was simulated and optimized at Institute’s laboratories, following the requirements for the tomato packaging. The material developed has improved strength properties and water/vapour resistance. During paper production and converting bio-based additives such as startch-based glues and bio-based printing colours were used to ensure the material and packaging product are home compostable and in compliance with the regulation for the materials intended for food contact. The scale-up and first production of the paper as well as the design of the paper bag has been provided by Pulp and Paper Institute in 2019 for market tests (25.000 bags). Due to very positive feedback from the market, the tomato stem paper is now being regularly produced on the Institute’s pilot paper machine and the Lušt paper bags have been used in the market for two years.  

A logical next step to increase the efficiency in the amount of the producer’s waste valorised, in the process economics, and to enable development of new packaging solutions, was the development of  corrugated board. The base paper developed for the bags (a patented process) was further optimized for the production of liners and fluting. The biggest challenge was to find the corrugated board producer with the equipment adjustable for different input materials. A small Slovenian board producer successfully finished the board and the first product – a gift box – was presented for the first time this year.

What percentage of the corrugated board is made from tomato stems?

In order to achieve the appropriate mechanical properties, the paper contains approx. 50% fibers from tomato stems, the remaining are commercially available hardwood and softwood fibres. For all three layers of corrugated board, paper with a grammage of 110 g/m2 was used.

Would it be possible to upscale the process for more widespread use?Expand

As we have successfully tested the process on a pilot (semi-industrial) scale it definitely has a potential for upscaling. However, there are important challenges that have to be addressed – the availability of biomass (or various types of it) in terms of quantity, seasonal availability (storage), dispersed sources (transport), variations in quality etc.  The existing wood pulping installations are  over capacitated and not necessarily adapted to such intense variations in the incoming raw materials. The majority of the alternative raw materials, in this case tomato plant stems, are diverse, variable and seasonable, therefore the incoming feedstock is not available in quantities for big-scale production in one place which is reflected in high logistic cost.

Upscaling is possible with small to medium scale installations (pulping capacity up to 100 t/day), easily adaptable to various raw materials and connected to upstream (biomass producers, transport and logistic services) as well to downstream value chain (mid-sized paper mills, packaging producers, retailers) and end users (agricultural producers, recycling companies).

An important constraint, recognized in different regions is the lack of the intermediates, RDI institutions that can support the development of new value chains and demonstration of the potential products. Pulp and Paper Institute, with its piloting equipment  including biomass fractionation, paper production and a packaging demo centre has developed the paper, corrugated board and packaging products to the level that can be upscaled and replicated. 

Have there been any trials with other types of agricultural waste?

Statistics show there is high potential of biomass waste and side streams in Slovenia for biorefining. At the Pulp and Paper Institute we have compiled a database of these raw materials along with their potentially available quantities and most promising fields of use, not only for papermaking but also in for chemicals extraction, enzyme production etc. So far, we have successfully obtained fibres and produced papers from several different sources.  Those with most potential, around thirty of them, have been studied in-depth in terms of chemical and morphological structures and the process of cellulose fibre extraction and paper production at lab scale. From agricultural residues and side streams, for instance, we have analysed wheat, straw, hops, barley, corn, among others. The pilot trials and industrial production of paper and paper packaging were developed in cooperation with different partners, i.e., for the local community from the urban green cuts (invasive alien plants, Japanese knotweed, Canadian goldenrod, black locust) or different industries from their waste (i.e. sawdust, wasted jute coffee bags). Some of them are presented under the Institute’s trade mark CiP.   All these products are evaluated in terms of their circularity and compliance with the legislative and market requirements. Corrugated cardboard was produced only from paper made from the fibers of tomato plants and Japanese knotweed. However, our knowledge, equipment and the excellent partner network allows us to experiment also with other types of biomasses. 

Source:

https://packagingeurope.com/a-closer-look-at-icpc-s-corrugated-cardboard-box-from-tomato-stems/