Pick n Pay has expanded its private label offering with a more premium range dubbed Crafted Collection. Promising “a premium taste intertwined with affordability”, the Crafted Collection has been designed to drive innovation and differentiation within the newly revamped middle- to top-end Pick n Pay stores.
Pick n Pay’s CEO Pieter Boone announced earlier this year that, as part of the group’s new Ekuseni strategic plan, its supermarkets will be organised into two customer-facing brands, each designed around specific customer needs. The Crafted Collection will be stocked at Pick n Pay stores that aim to satisfy the needs of middle to top-end customers who are looking for innovation and inspiration. The new range forms part of the 18,000 products the stores will stock, which has a strong focus on innovation.
Growth of private label
Pick n Pay’s private label range now accounts for 25% of its sales. This is up from 18% five years ago showing the growth opportunity. Bridget Dore, head of customer insights at Pick n Pay, says that many customers are seeking value-for-money products and are increasingly choosing private label products.
This is a global trend as many countries experience rising inflation. A recent survey of US shoppers showed that shoppers are buying more private labels over known food and grocery brands than before the pandemic. Of the 41% of shoppers who said they’d bought more private label products, 77% said they plan to continue buying store brands. The Power of Private Brands report by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) also revealed that apart from value and lower costs, quality and taste are also driving this purchasing behaviour.
Pick n Pay first introduced its private label in 1976 with the ‘no name’ range as a way to offer customers excellent value at preferential prices. From just 14 ‘no name’ products, its private label now boasts over 4,800 products and Pick n Pay states that it has launched several ranges over the decades to suit its customers’ changing needs, aspirations and budgets.
‘Mainstream premium’ food and grocery products
The new Crafted Collection by PnP range currently has over 70 products in store, with a further 100 products expected to launch by the end of the year. The range focuses on innovation across food and grocery items, and will soon extend into more categories.
Nicki Russell, head of product and technical at Pick n Pay, says that customers have been asking for a new affordable top-tier product range following the retailer’s Finest private label range. “We’ve spent a lot of time understanding customers in this space, and have crafted this range to be sophisticated yet mainstream, at surprisingly good prices.”
Crafted to deliver a unique foodie experience to customers, the range has elevated much-loved products into high premium. Some of these include a Fynbos Flavoured Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Chai, a Smoky Tomato Ketchup and a wide range of Exotic Mushrooms.
“The flavours aren’t too chefy or unattainable. We haven’t gone for extremely niche flavours, but rather ‘mainstream premium’ that pushes the boundaries. We wanted our customers to relate to the flavours, and feel confident using them,” says Russell.
Indulgence is another strong focus of the range with its range of crafted chocolates, biscuits, shortbread and hot chocolate. This is tapping into the ‘spoiling myself’ trend which has strongly emerged post-Covid. Customers are increasingly looking to treat themselves to food indulgence that doesn’t break the budget.
Supporting small business
Pick n Pay states that it has always used its private label to help develop small businesses, and the Crafted Collection is no different.
Ninety percent of the range is locally sourced or produced by local suppliers. “Our dedicated product team has worked closely with local businesses to craft and develop these products. We have sourced the finest local products, and have only used imported products if they weren’t available locally.”
According to the retailer, the range’s packaging follows the global trend of ‘blue is the new black’. “We wanted customers to feel proud to place it on the dining table or to gift it to someone,” says Russell.
Packaging for the agrochemical sector is crucial because fertilisers and pesticides are generally toxic. Advanced packaging, with excellent sealing abilities, help reduce the risk of accidental handling, storing, and transport damage. But how can the product’s label also help mitigate risks?
Agrochemical labels are governed by stringent legal requirements for product labelling because of their hazardous chemical compositions. It’s this information that ensures the product’s safe handling, storage, and usage.
However, with standard label solutions, the available space is normally too small for mandatory text such as dosage and storage instructions, contraindications, and product descriptions to be legible. The result is often information-cluttered primary packaging and a separate insert inside the product’s secondary pack.
Pyrotec PackMedia’s solution to this challenge is a multipage label that’s cost-effective and provides an extended area for information within the space normally used by an adhesive label.
Multipage labels are permanently secured to the product’s packaging for its entire usable life. This means that the label can’t be lost or accidentally discarded, as can happen with a separate leaflet. Having clear, detailed, information – including text, charts, and diagrams – attached directly onto the container is ideal for protecting personnel and consumers.
These multipage labels can also include special characteristics such as moisture resistance, high durability, and the ability to withstand harsh chemicals, extreme temperatures, and a variety of storage conditions. These are important attributes given the tough environment the containers often withstand in the agrochemical sector.
Another added benefit is cost-cutting. Multipage labels can be designed to include extensive information in multiple languages while eliminating the need for separate labels for each language. They streamline production and simplify the management of inventories and distribution channels.
In a nutshell, the benefits of using multipage labels for agrochemical products include:
Clear, legible on-pack guidelines that encourage the correct use of products and meet regulatory requirements.
Reproduced information in multiple languages that significantly extends on-pack communication.
Doing away with separate packaging, leaflets, or labels, particularly for a wide product range, to reduce the cost of packaging waste and inventory costs.
Automatic application because multipage labels are supplied on-reel and can be applied using standard labelling machinery. This results in uninterrupted production lines.
For more information about the benefits of multipage labels for agrochemical products, visit www.pyrotec.co.za.
In pursuit of a World Without Waste, Coca-Cola introduces a new bottle made from100% rPET for Dasani water and moves from green to clear plastic for Sprite to improve recycling of the bottle.
The Coca-Cola Company has made significant changes to two of its biggest North American brands in support of its World Without Waste sustainable packaging goals. The first, Dasani water, involves the rollout of a new bottle made from 100% recycled PET, excluding the cap and label. Meanwhile, its carbonated lemon-lime soft drink Sprite has transitioned from green to clear plastic to increase the material’s likelihood of being remade into new beverage bottles.
The introduction of the Dasani bottles commenced this past summer, when Coca-Cola began offering a majority of its Dasani bottles in the U.S.—including 20-oz and 1.5-L singles and 10- and 12-oz multipacks—in 100% recycled plastic. In Canada, this innovation spanned all Dasani bottles. Says the company, the shift supports both Dasani’s pledge to remove the equivalent of 2 billion virgin plastic bottles from production by 2027 compared to 2021 levels and Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste goal to use at least 50% recycled material in its bottles and cans by 2030.
The brand’s transition to 100% recycled plastic is projected to save more than 20 million pounds of new plastic, the equivalent of 552 million bottles, compared to 2019, and cut more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. Explains Coca-Cola, because it takes less energy and resources to create a bottle from recycled plastic, for every pound of recycled rPET material used (in lieu of new PET), GHGs will be reduced by 65%. The end result will be the equivalent of taking 6,629 cars off the road for one year, it adds.
In the U.S., Coca-Cola is offering 100% rPET bottles for Dasani in 20-oz and 1.5-L sizes and in 10- and 12-oz multipacks. In Canada, this innovation spans all Dasani bottles.The Dasani announcement follows the successful launch of 100% recycled plastic bottles in New York, California, and Texas, which also included Coca-Cola Trademark 20-oz bottles. According to the company, the launch helped it to identify the best-quality sources of rPET and fine-tune the production processes needed to make 100% recycled plastic bottles.
“Demand for rPET currently exceeds supply, so the first step to scaling up use of 100% rPET across our portfolio is building a sustainable pipeline of high-quality material,” says Chris Vallette, Senior Vice President of Technical Innovation and Stewardship, Coca-Cola North America. “We do this by working with communities to boost PET recycling and collection, collaborating with recycling partners, and, finally, securing rPET to help ensure the material for our bottles is used again and again.”
The initial launch helped drive consumer awareness through the on-pack “100% Recycled Bottle” and “Recycle Me Again” calls-to-action, which were also used on retail signage and other communications. Dasani bottles will continue to feature this messaging. “We saw how much the 100% recycled PET message truly resonates with our customers and consumers, particularly Dasani fans whose sustainability expectations are especially high,” notes Vallette.
The move to 100% rPET is just the latest sustainable packaging innovation by the water brand, shares the company. Over the last decade, Dasani has unveiled a steady stream of what it describes as “footprint-reducing packaging breakthroughs,” including the PlantBottle; the HybridBottle, which fused rPET, PlantBottle plant-based plastic material, and virgin PET; aluminum cans and bottles; Dasani PureFill package-less water dispensers; and its bottle caps made from recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic, an industry first, according to the Coca-Cola.
Sprite gets transparent
Also this past summer, Aug. 1, 2022, to be exact, Sprite shifted all its PET packaging from the brand’s signature green color to clear plastic. Explains Coca-Cola, although green PET is recyclable, the recycled material is more often converted into single-use items like clothing and carpeting that cannot be recycled into new PET bottles. During the sorting process, green and other colored PET is separated from clear material to avoid discoloring recycled food-grade packaging required to make new PET bottles.
“Taking colors out of bottles improves the quality of the recycled material,” says Julian Ochoa, CEO, R3CYCLE, which is working with Coca-Cola Consolidated to enable bottle-to-bottle recycling across the largest U.S. bottler’s 14 state-territory. “This transition will help increase availability of food-grade rPET. When recycled, clear PET Sprite bottles can be remade into bottles, helping drive a circular economy for plastic.”
In addition to Dasani’s new 100% rPET bottle, Coca-Cola will also be offering a number of its green-bottle beverage brands in new clear PET bottles.Adds Vallette, “Sprite’s move to clear will help us introduce more 100% rPET bottles like Dasani is launching and keep more bottles in the circular economy.”
In addition to transitioning to clear bottles, Sprite is introducing a new visual identity system featuring a revamped logo and packaging design to provide a consistent look and voice around the world. Sprite’s packaging graphics will retain the brand’s recognizable green hue and include prominent “Recycle Me” messaging.
Sprite is just the first of Coca-Cola’s green-bottle beverage brands to make the switch. In October, Fresca, Seagram’s, and Mello Yello will also convert from green to clear plastic.
Seafood producer Iceland collaborated with sustainable, flexible packaging specialist Parkside to deliver one of the world’s first paper recyclable packaging solutions for frozen food.
The pack format has been designed for the supermarket’s Northcoast range of frozen seafood.
Iceland says the packaging solution is a significant milestone, both for its own pursuit of plastic-free packaging, and for the frozen food sector in general since it represents one of the first successful applications of flexible paper packaging for frozen food.
“As everyone knows, we are loud and proud about our forward-thinking ideas and commitment to plastic-free packaging across our products,” says Mark Armstrong, Packaging Specialist at Iceland. “We previously worked with Parkside in a successful bid to reduce food waste via a lidding film solution in 2017. But we know we can do more. As consumer sentiment continues to grow for circular solutions, it is the perfect time to collaborate once again in a bid to reduce unnecessary plastic in our packaging.”
Iceland’s Northcoast products were previously packed in an low-density polyethylene (LDPE) bag. They are now packed in a specially developed recyclable paper pouch with excellent grease and oil resistance.
The heat-sealable paper solution was designed to withstand the rigors of frost and moisture in a freezer environment for prolonged periods of time. This was achieved by creating high-performing heat seal-ability, and by using a range of water-based coatings with high barrier performance, which are designed to break down when re-pulped in the paper recycling process.
Armstrong continued: “Bag sealing was a challenge, as was ensuring the material had the necessary barrier properties. We also wanted the print to match the existing LDPE bag and therefore a lot of time was spent in artwork and repro to give us the best possible result.”
“It has been a huge privilege for us to work on this project with Mark and his team. Until recently, achieving a high level of grease and oil resistance and heat seal ability for frozen food has been extremely challenging,” adds Mark Shaw, Sales Account Manager at Parkside. “Typically, a plastic layer such as polyethylene would need to be extruded or laminated to the paper, which would then need to be removed when recycling post-consumer use. Our leading technology removes the need for the plastic and gives a truly recyclable paper solution with the added benefit of high-barrier functionality.” PW
The ocean-safe, biodegradable Leave No Trace bag is made from PVOH that can be disposed of by running warm or hot water over it.
A new garment bag from U.K. outdoor clothing brand Finisterre is said to literally “Leave No Trace.” The company, which was the first in its market to be named a B Corp business—a certification that measures a company’s entire social and environmental impact—has been, since its beginning in 2003, committed to the belief that it can make a truly exceptional product in a more responsible and sustainable way.
Finisterre is located on the cliffs of St Agnes in Cornwall, England, overlooking the Atlantic. Its products, including technical outerwear and built-for-purpose products that are made to last, such as knitwear, insulation, waterproof clothing, and base layers, is “built for adventure and inspires a love of the sea.” That’s according to Niamh O’Laoighre, Head of Product Development & Technical for Finisterre, who adds that it’s in the company’s DNA to strive for innovation. “And that doesn’t end in our clothing,” she shares. “It extends to all areas of the business, including packaging.”
In 2018, when Finisterre gained B Corp certification, it made a commitment to eradicate single-use, non-biodegradable plastics from its supply chain. “Plastic is everywhere,” says O’Laoighre. “It’s an incredibly useful material in its lifecycle, but its end of life is a bit of a problem. There are an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic going to our oceans every year. And it’s thought that there’s now more microplastic in the seas than stars in the Milky Way.”
When the company learned of biodegradable and compostable plastics supplier Aquapak, O’Laoighre says it had been looking for a solution that could replace its polyethylene garment bags for some time. “But we couldn’t find quite the right one to tick all our boxes,” she explains. “We needed something with multiple end-of-life solutions that were accessible to everyone—consumer, retailer, manufacturer—and crucially, something that, should it leach into the natural environment, would break down completely and leave no microplastics.”
Aquapak’s Hydropol polyvinyl alcohol technology resin ticked all those boxes. PVOH, also known by the acronym PVA, is a naturally water-soluble thermoplastic that is fully biocompatible and non-toxic. One drawback for packaging applications, however, is its thermal instability—an issue that Aquapak says it’s overcome with Hydropol.
“The key to the exploitation of this known and highly functional polymer is in the processing and the additive chemistry, which enables thermally processible Hydropol to be produced, unlike historical PVOH systems that were very limited in their application potential because of their thermal instability,” shares Dr. John Williams, Chief Technology Officer for Aquapak. “This stable processability has opened up the functionality—strength, barrier, end of life—to the mainstream packaging industry, thereby allowing the development of packaging constructions that are both functional and recyclable/biodegradable. The careful choice of proprietary additive technology retains the property of biodegradability in water.”
According to Aquapak, Hydropol is completely dissolvable in warm and hot water, without leaving residue; is UV-resistant; provides a barrier against oil, fat, grease, gas, and petrochemicals; is breathable to moisture; provides an oxygen barrier; is strong and puncture-resistant; and is marine safe, completely biodegrading in marine environments, where it is safe to both marine plant and wildlife. In addition, the standardized pellet form of Hydropol’s resin means it can be directly integrated into existing manufacturing processes.
According to Dr. Williams, Finisterre’s requirements for the new material were that it be marine safe, clear, printable, and strong, as well as able to be processed on existing converting equipment. The development process for the Hydropol-based garment bag spanned nearly a year and involved tailoring the solubility of the resin to meet the application.
The resulting bag, branded by Finisterre as its Leave No Trace bag, is made from Aquapak’s Hydropol 30164P monolayer blown film. Copy on the clear bag explains that it is “water soluble, ocean safe, and biodegradable, breaking down harmlessly into non-toxic biomass in soil and sea.”
On its website, the company advises its customers, “If you’re wondering how to safely dispose of your Leave No Trace bag, all you’ll need is a kettle and your sink. The material breaks down quickly and harmlessly in water temperatures above 70ºC. Should your bag end up in landfill, it will biodegrade naturally and Leave No Trace.”
The bags can also be recycled, the company adds. “The material can be readily identified by sorting methods such as infrared and laser sorting and can therefore be separated and reprocessed,” it explains. “In less sophisticated waste-handling facilities, the use of hot water wash enables Hydropol to be taken into solution. Once in solution, the polymer can either be recovered, or the solution is allowed to go to normal wastewater treatment or anaerobic digestion.”
Finisterre’s new mailer is lighter than the kraft bag it had been using previously, with a film barrier made from Aquapak’s Hydropol material.Following on the heels of its Leave No Trace garment bags, Finisterre introduced a new and notably lighter mailer to replace the heavyweight kraft bag it had been using to mail its products. The bag was developed by Finisterre in partnership with Aquapak and converter EP Group. Now known as the Flexi-Kraft mailer bag, the package features a layer of Hydropol 33104P coextruded blown film laminated to kraft paper using a solvent-free adhesive. The Hydropol layer is said to give the bags strength and flexibility as well as tear resistance. The PVOH layer also enables the bags to be much lighter than pure paper mailers and to be heat sealed for a stronger seal.
“Using 70% less paper than our old mailbags, this new packaging combines lightweight paper laminated with our water-soluble Leave No Trace material, to create a sturdy mailbag that can be safely added to your household paper recycling and dissolves in the pulping process of paper recycling,” says the company.
“Lining our mailbags with this new material reduces bag weight by 50% while increasing paper strength by 44%, all with fewer materials,” it adds. “That means less resources used both in production and transportation.”
Despite the fact that the use of Hydropol has significantly impacted the cost of Finisterre’s packaging—in the case of the garment bag, up to four to five times more than the cost of PE— O’Laoighre said the increase is one the company is willing to bear. “As a company committed to doing business better, it is a very important project, and one we believe in,” she says. “We were incredibly proud to be the first clothing company in the world to use this packaging technology, and we’re offering it open source to other brands that want to use it, because together we can make a bigger difference.”
Unilever’s new laundry capsule and plastic-free container for Persil and its sister brands feature an improved sustainability profile while maintaining functionality.
Unilever will soon launch a new laundry capsule and container designed to add a dash of sustainability to the laundry cycle.
The new capsules, set to be sold under Unilever’s Dirt Is Good brand (also known as Persil, Skip, OMO, and Surf Excel across global markets), use a fully biodegradable membrane now made with 25% renewable materials, a Unilever release says. The brand claims it’s the fastest dissolving capsule on the market.
“We needed to strike the balance between a film strong enough to protect the liquid formulation that would also dissolve quickly and fully in cold and short cycles, ensuring consumers could use them with confidence in the most energy efficient washing machine cycles,” Dr. Keith Rutherford, Head of Global Innovation, Unilever Home Care R&D, says.
The short and cold cycle-capable capsule design, combined with a detergent formula using biodegradable and 65% plant-based active ingredients, reduces the capsule’s carbon footprint by 16% and saves consumers up to 60% energy per wash.
The product’s packaging sustainability benefits extend beyond the capsule with a 100% plastic free container, supplied by Graphic Packaging International (GPI). Using fully recyclable carton board that is sourced half from recycled material and half from Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forests, Unilever expects the containers to prevent over 6,000 metric tons of plastic from entering the waste stream each year.
The container features water-based barrier coatings and a separate pad inside to protect the capsules from water damage and excessive heat or humidity. It is easier to open than the outgoing plastic equivalent, with carton board strong enough to maintain opening functionality after repeated use. It also meets European standard test protocols for childproofing.
“[GPI and Unilever’s] combined expertise in carton design, product protection capabilities, and understanding of consumer behavior has enabled us to create this superior, plastic-free and child-proof solution, enabling consumers and businesses alike to reduce their use of single-use plastic,” Graphic Packaging International Director of New Business Development, EU Consumer Products Ralf Mack says.
This new package design furthers Unilever’s Clean Future Strategy, which aims to “fundamentally change the way that some of the world’s best-known cleaning and laundry products are created, manufactured, and packaged,” the release says.
Announced in September 2020, the strategy is backed by a €1 billion investment over the course of 10 years. It includes goals to use less plastic, better plastic, or no plastic where possible, and design packaging to meet requirements for a circular economy.
“Through our Clean Future program, our ambition is to make sustainable cleaning the compelling choice for every consumer by bringing real innovation to established mass market products,” Unilever’s Rutherford says. “The new proprietary formulation and child-proof cardboard packaging is the work of so many people. This is our best and most sustainable laundry capsule yet.”
The capsules will be first released in France September 2022, followed by the UK and other European countries in early 2023, with plans to expand globally in all Dirt is Good markets.
Aromatherapy oil-based mouthwash from GuruNanda comes in a concentrated formula packaged in a 2-oz glass bottle that holds 300 doses and reduces plastic packaging by 99%.
Ever since the early to mid-2000s when household cleaning brands began rolling out concentrated liquid laundry detergent products in an effort to reduce the size of their packaging, companies in a range of markets have adopted this tactic to reduce the environmental footprint of both their products and their packaging. One recent example is GuruNanda, a Buena Park, Calif.-based company that recently introduced a concentrated mouthwash product that eliminates 98% of the water and 99% of the plastic used for a traditional oral rinse product, while at the same time removing all the “nasties” from the product’s formula as well.
Founded by Puneet Nanda, a certified expert in Ayurvedic medicine and a yoga instructor, GuruNanda is “devoted to helping people lead productive and stress-free lives through aromatherapy and Ayurvedic principles.” Among its offerings are bath, beauty, and oral care products formulated with essential aromatherapy oils.
Says Nanda, oral care has been in his DNA since he founded Dr. Fresh, an oral care company that he sold in 2012. After a hiatus from the business world during which time he learned about and taught yoga and holistic living, Nanda returned to the market with a new perspective on oral care products.
“I learned that most plastic is wasted in big bottles of mouthwash transported across the nation, which are 98% filled with water and a small quantity of artificial flavor, color, saccharin, and menthol alongside either alcohol or any other bactericide,” he says. With that in mind, Nanda decided to marry sustainable packaging with a natural mouthwash formula, creating a concentrated, essential oils-based rinse packaged in a 2-oz amber glass bottle with dropper.
“You just add a few drops [four, to be exact] to water in a cup and rinse,” Nanda explains. “The formulation was done in such a way that it dissolves immediately in water and gives a natural, minty clean that doesn’t harm your natural mouth microbiome even after giving you all the major benefits of a regular mouthwash.”
The tiny bottle holds 300 doses, which is equivalent to 160 oz of non-concentrated mouthwash, resulting in the elimination of 10 16-oz plastic bottles. “That means fewer packaging materials, less shipping, and a smaller carbon footprint,” says the company. “Good for you, good for the planet.” According to Nanda, glass packaging was selected for the concentrate due to the material’s sustainability and because the product’s essential oils stay stable in amber glass.
The mouthwash is available in one variety, Wild Mint, that’s formulated with what GuruNanda says are seven purpose-driven, sustainably harvested, pure and natural essential oils. These are peppermint, spearmint, tea tree, oregano, clove, cardamom, and fennel. The mouthwash contains no alcohol, fluoride, preservatives, gluten, or toxic chemicals, and is not tested on animals.
According to Nanda, when the product was initially introduced, it was not widely received by consumers. “But then we changed the packaging to be see-through, which has been very helpful and has communicated our message better,” he explains. “We also implemented a free sampling program of 50,000 bottles, which helped make people more aware of the product.”
GuruNanda’s Wild Mint Concentrated Mouthwash in a 2-oz bottle is available through the company’s website for $12.78 for a one-time purchase and for $11.50 on a subscription basis. The product is also sold at Walmart and on Amazon.
China multinational NICE Group collaborates with Dow and Amcor in APAC to develop a recyclable, all-plastic toothpaste tube for its extensive portfolio of toothpaste brands.
For Consumer Packaged Goods companies and packaging suppliers alike, one of the Holy Grails of sustainable packaging is the quest to reengineer historically non-recyclable materials so that they can be easily recycled. Examples include multilayer flexible films, wax-coated produce shipping cases, and—a biggie for the oral hygiene industry—laminated toothpaste tubes, a particularly tough nut to crack due to the need for an aluminum layer.
Toothpaste tubes are traditionally constructed of layers of plastic, with a thin layer of aluminum sandwiched between layers to protect the product from oxygen and humidity. Because of its multilayer structure, and in particular, the aluminum layer, until recently, the tubes could not be recycled. As a result, an estimated 400 million toothpaste tubes are discarded every year in the U.S. and at least 1.5 billion globally. Using another measure to convey the scale of the problem, materials science company Dow shares that unrecyclable toothpaste tubes account for an estimated 100,000 tons of waste each year—“roughly the weight of 10 Eiffel Towers.”
Fortunately, as is the case with the other non-recyclable packaging formats mentioned above, great strides have been made recently by packaging materials suppliers to develop new tube constructions for toothpaste that are curbside-recyclable. Among those brands that have introduced recyclable tube packaging for their toothpaste products are GSK, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive. In late 2021, Chinese multinational NICE Group joined this illustrious list of global companies, switching its portfolio of toothpaste brands to a fully recyclable tube designed by Dow and Amcor.
Project addresses all stakeholders’ commitments
NICE is a 50-year-old company that specializes in household care, fabric care, oral hygiene, and personal care products. Its brands, which include DIAO, Supra, NICE, Jianshuangbai, Yayale, 100 Years Hair Care, and Natural Magic, are sold in more than 70 countries and regions, including the U.S., the U.K., Japan, and others. According to Lei Zhang, Chief Engineer for NICE, the company has one of the largest bases of personal care products across the globe, operating 10 production sites worldwide.
Differentiating the brand from its competitors is its company philosophy, “Enhancing Your Life,” Zhang shares. “With the ambition to be an environmentally friendly, safe, and healthy company, NICE Group uses advanced technology to design and develop green products,” he shares. “Adhering to our mission of making life better and our world cleaner, we make great efforts to advance sustainable development. We were one of the first companies to adopt the concept of environmental lifecycle management in the product design and development stage, systematically considering the impact of raw material selection, production, sales, use, recycling, and disposal on the environment. We strive to minimize the consumption of resources during the entire lifecycle of products to reduce the generation and discharge of pollutants, in order to protect our environment to the largest extent.”
Packaging is an important part of the lifecycle of a product, he emphasizes, which has prompted NICE to make a number of improvements in the sustainability of its packaging. “In recent years, NICE Group has advanced the lightweight design of packaging and has reduced the use of virgin plastics by more than 5,000 tons and the use of virgin paper by more than 3,000 tons each year,” he shares. “In addition, we have introduced more recyclable packaging.” That includes its recent introduction of a new toothpaste tube for its Cnice gum and tooth care line, its Jianshuangbai high-end line of professional whitening toothpaste, and its Yayale line, a Chinese brand of children’s oral care products.
According to Zhang, NICE was one of the first companies to propose the concept of recyclable toothpaste tubes, an idea that came to fruition by working with its long-time packaging partners Dow and Amcor. Notes Haley Lowry, Global Sustainability Director at Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, “NICE is committed to using more recycling-friendly packaging to promote its circular economy and was determined to step up and find a way to reduce oral care waste entering landfills. Evolving packaging used in a well-established industry such as oral hygiene is a journey that takes close collaboration and commitment in order to develop scalable solutions.
“To meet our sustainability goals and to address the ongoing increase of toothpaste tubes in landfills, we worked with Amcor, a global leader in producing responsible packaging, to develop a full plastic laminate.” Among Dow’s sustainability commitments, it has pledged to make 100% of its products sold into packaging applications reusable or recyclable by 2035.
Xin She, President of Amcor China, shares that Amcor China’s partnership with Dow and NICE dates back 20 years, with the tube-packaging project ramping up five years ago. “In 2018, Amcor signed the [Ellen MacArthur Foundation] New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, and we were the first global packaging company pledging to develop all packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025,” he says. “Since then, we’ve been working with Dow and NICE on this project.”
Engineering the tube is ‘complex work’
The challenges associated with the project were multifaceted. Not only did Dow and Amcor need to design a mono-material substrate that would provide the same oxygen and humidity barriers as the plastic/aluminum laminate tube, but that material also needed to be able to run on both Amcor’s converting equipment and on NICE’s existing filling equipment.
“To increase the recyclability of the toothpaste tube, we had to remove the aluminum layer from the structure, however, we also needed to ensure the high barrier performance required by the application,” explains Lowry. “Polyethylene plus ethylene vinyl alcohol coextruded film is a typical all-plastic structure that can fulfill the needs of recyclability as well as high barriers.”
Pulling from its product portfolio, Dow engineered an all-plastic structure that meets the stringent barrier requirements of toothpaste. The laminate comprises Dow’s high-barrier ELITE AT (Advanced Technology) PE resin, which is said to offer high processability as well as high shrink, ultra-high stiffness, sealability, and organoleptics. Dow’s BYNEL adhesive resin provides the coextrusion tie layer between the PE and EVOH, ensuring the integrity of the laminate to secure the barriers.
“The surface film materials offer high gloss, low haze, and minimal gel defect, ensuring an appealing aesthetic appearance,” Lowry adds. “And, an additional benefit, removing aluminum enables a transparent appearance.”
Once the resins were selected, Amcor designed and converted the tube, continuously adjusting its manufacturing and converting systems to ensure operational efficiency and safety, shares She. It also worked with NICE to perform stability, equipment, and transportation testing to guarantee consistency in quality.
“We needed to make sure the new resins could run smoothly and economically on Amcor and NICE’s equipment, which required deep expertise and experience from operation and technical teams,” says She. “Developing a recyclable toothpaste tube was complex work, a lot of factors had to be taken into consideration. The barrier property was the key point of tube laminates, so we needed to ensure excellent barrier with a low EVOH ratio. We three parties worked together closely and designed the structure and formulation with high-performance granules. We tested many times, and finally the issue was fixed.”
An industry-wide movement
The resulting package, now used for all of NICE’s toothpaste brands, provides all of the functionality of the non-recyclable plastic/aluminum tubes, plus other advantages, and has been well received by consumers. “Once on shelves, the toothpaste products with the new recyclable packaging were widely welcomed by consumers. In particular, the toothpaste products packed with a transparent plastic tube is the most popular because its packaging allows consumers to see the high-quality toothpaste and feel more relieved when purchasing and using it,” Zhang says. “At the same time, the recyclable tube is more eco-friendly than the aluminum-based tube. In the process of purchasing and using NICE toothpaste, consumers are delivering on their eco-friendly promises and contributing to greater environmental protection, giving them a sense of achievement and honor.”
With NICE’s introduction of the new tube, Zhang says the company will be able to prevent approximately 3,000 metric tons of toothpaste tubes from entering landfills each year—not an insignificant number, especially when combined with the reductions promised by other CPGs as they roll out their own recyclable tubes. Among them, GSK has pledged to make over 1 billion tubes recyclable by 2025.
Commenting on the number of oral hygiene brands and packaging suppliers introducing recyclable toothpaste tubes to the market, Dow’s Lowry says the more the merrier. “Sustainability is a mega trend driving the development of the packaging industry,” she says. “We are glad to see more and more brand owners share the same vision with Dow to close the loop and commit to develop and adopt more recyclable packaging.”
Zhang also hopes NICE’s adoption of the new packaging will inspire other brands to follow. “NICE Group is one of the first companies to introduce a recyclable toothpaste tube,” he says. “We are the pioneer to encourage the entire industry to be eco-friendly, where more and more brands have started using this recyclable solution.”
Beiersdorf uses the 4R approach—Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, and Replace—to develop a number of industry-first packages for its flagship personal care brand, Nivea, to support its sustainability goals and a circular economy.
The Eco-Valve, used for Nivea’s new EcoDeo line, uses inert gases as a propellant in aerosol sprays while still providing the performance and spray quality of traditional valves.
For a brand known for its iconic blue branding, Nivea is looking quite green these days. Over the last two years, a number of products belonging to the personal care brand have undergone significant transformations—some of them industry firsts—to reduce the carbon footprint of both their formulas and their packaging. It’s all part of Hamburg, Germany-based parent company Beiersdorf’s Care Beyond Skin sustainability agenda, which lays out ambitious goals under three areas, the Environment, Society, and the Consumer, to foster a circular economy and a climate-positive future.
“Humanity is facing a growing amount of environmental and societal challenges, and the urgency, especially for global companies, to act and to contribute to a positive change, has never been higher,” says Beiersdorf. “We formulated our corporate purpose—Care Beyond Skin—and with this, put our existing self-understanding into words. It states very clearly that we see our responsibility as going far beyond our core business of skin care.”
Overall, the company has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2025 (versus base year 2018), which it says is among the most ambitious targets in the industry. As concerns its product packaging, Beiersdorf has made a number of commitments around the focus area of “Fully Circular Resources.” This includes reducing its use of fossil-based virgin plastic by 50% by 2025 (versus base year 2019); increasing the use of recycled material in its plastic packaging to 30% by 2025 (versus 2019); and making 100% of its packaging refillable, reusable, or recyclable by 2025.
Like a number of other Consumer Packaged Goods brands with similarly daunting goals, Beiersdorf is employing a number of packaging technologies and strategies, falling under the what the company calls the “4R approach”—Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, and Replace—to make its packaging more sustainable.
The result for its flagship brand Nivea has been a flurry of new packaging formats and products over just the past two years. Among them is the first 100% post-consumer recycled-content aluminum aerosol can and a new aerosol valve technology that reduces emissions and extends the product’s use. Another is a reusable, refillable packaging system for hand soap. Two other new packages—a plastic jar made from bio-based material and a lightweighted bottle for shower gel that includes 96% recycled material—reduce Nivea’s use of virgin plastic. And, lest we forget paper, in 2021, Nivea replaced a laminated carton with one embellished with transfer metallization that allows for recyclability.
First to market with a 100% PCR aluminum aerosol bottle
While much of the packaging used for Nivea’s skin care products, which include body and face lotions and creams, lip care products, body wash, and sunscreen, among others, is made from plastic, packaging for its deodorant and shaving gel products also includes aluminum formats, in particular for the aerosol spray formulations. Beginning in May 2021, Beiersdorf began collaborating with Swiss aluminum can company Nussbaum Matzingen AG to develop the first aerosol can made from 100% post-consumer recycled aluminum in an effort to reduce the CO2 footprint of its aerosol cans.
Beginning in May 2021, Beiersdorf began collaborating with Swiss aluminum can company Nussbaum Matzingen AG to develop the first aerosol can made from 100% PCR aluminum.In an interview with Aerosol Europe, Nussbaum CTO Markus Tomasini explained that there were several challenges to overcome in producing the 100% PCR aluminum alloy. This included ensuring the safety of the pressurized aluminum can, as until recently, the required strength could only be reached by using aluminum slugs containing at least 99.5% virgin aluminum. Another hurdle was finding enough recycled aluminum material, as, he shared, “only 20% of the global aluminum demand may be covered by recycled material.” And last, even if Nussbaum were able to secure the material, the concern was that the recycled aluminum would have a worse carbon footprint due to long transportation routes and complex and costly collection and sorting processes.
Nussbaum’s solution, Tomasini shared with Aerosol Europe, is to use mono-material aluminum beverage can scrap from the German Yellow Bin waste disposal system, whereby post-consumer plastic, metal, and paper waste is returned to collection points for recycling. Nussbaum presses the aluminum scrap and converts it into slugs using the impact extrusion process it typically employs for its standard cans.
“The waste collection point, the aluminum processor, and our factory are located within a span of 150 kilometers,” Tomasini told the publication. “We have short transport routes, something that optimally supports the sustainability goal. And what is extremely important: there are no compromises with regard to quality or appearance, nor are safety or processability compromised compared to standard aluminum aerosol cans.”
“Tool and process innovation were the key to being able to process the high alloy content in the post-consumer-recycled material,” he added.
Nivea became the first global company to use the 100% recycled-content aluminum alloy—called Nucan-PCR—on a large scale when it introduced the can in December 2021 for a number of its Nivea Men deodorant sprays and for most of its Nivea Men shaving gels in Germany. The brand is continuing to roll out the new packaging for these products throughout European markets this year.
Along with the use of 100% PCR aluminum, Nivea also lightweighted the new aerosol can for a further reduction in GHGs. According to Beiersdorf, compared to the former aluminum cans used for its Nivea spray deodorants, Nucan-PCR delivers a 28% decrease in CO2 emissions, without any loss in quality. “For the shaving gel aluminum cans, the CO2 emissions could be reduced by even 35%,” it adds.
Furthermore, Alban Bourcier, Packaging Expert Deo & Aerosols, Beiersdorf, shares that with the recently launched Nivea Men deodorants and Nivea Men shaving gels in 100% PCR aluminum, the company will eliminate approximately 1,660 tons of virgin aluminum in 2022.
Aerosol can valve reduces GHGs, lengthens product use
In another first on the aerosol front, in December 2021 Beiersdorf also announced the introduction of a new valve technology for aluminum aerosol deodorant cans that reduces GHGs. The Eco-Valve, from Salford Valve Company Ltd. (Salvalco), uses “eco-friendlier,” inert gases, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or compressed air, as a propellant in aerosol sprays while still providing the performance and spray quality of traditional valves. “This brings about a higher yield per can, resulting in a significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, while delivering an excellent spray quality,” explains Beiersdorf.
The Eco-Valve, used for Nivea’s new EcoDeo line, uses inert gases as a propellant in aerosol sprays while still providing the performance and spray quality of traditional valves.The partnership between supplier and CPG began in 2020 when Beiersdorf acquired an equity stake in U.K.-based Salvalco through OSCAR&PAUL Beiersdorf Venture Capital to strengthen the personal care company’s footprint in sustainable packaging solutions and to support Salvalco’s research and commercialization of the patented Eco-Valve technology. The late 2021 launch of Nivea’s EcoDeo line of deodorants with the Eco-Valve applicator represented the first-ever use of the patented technology.
As Salvalco explains, the Eco-Valve utilizes patented Bubbly-Flow Technology developed by the Spray Research Group (SRG) at the University of Salford in the U.K. “It is this technology that enables aerosols to be propelled successfully by harmless compressed inert gases,” it shares. “Significantly better for the environment, it is also far safer than conventional propellants, which typically use hydrocarbons.”
Eco-Valve technology is described as a total system of valve and mechanical break-up (MBU) insert technology. Beiersdorf’s Bourcier explains: “The unique Eco-Valve concept optimizes the mix between formula and propellant. In combination with the MBU technology, the Eco-Valve system improves the formula nebulization in the spray cone angle.”
He adds that because the Eco-Valve follows industry standards, it looks like a standard aerosol valve from the outside. “This way, it can be adapted to standard aerosol containers,” he says. “Nevertheless, the technical design of the non-standard parts is not like standard aerosol valves. The Eco-Valve’s innovative technical design empowers the defined mix of formula and propellant in the valve.”
Beiersdorf is using Salvalco’s Super Single Gasket Valve option for its new range of EcoDeo products, which offer a “climate-friendlier spray application format.” Among the products in this packaging are Nivea’s Naturally Good deodorant, which contains 95% ingredients of natural origin, and Nivea Men deodorant.
According to Sandra Pasel, Global Brand Manager for Nivea Deo, EcoDeo targets aerosol spray deodorant users who are looking for a more sustainable alternative without losing the feeling of a spray application. “Although Nivea EcoDeo is a different application format than our standard deodorant sprays, consumer tests prove that it fulfills the expectations of our current deodorant spray users,” she notes.
Not only does the Eco-Valve eliminate conventional hydrocarbon propellants, but it also results in a higher yield per can. According to Pasel, the EcoDeo spray lasts twice as long as Nivea’s standard 150-mL deodorants. “Due to this, the consumer saves a whole aluminum can during usage,” she relates.
Projects significantly reduce virgin plastic material use
At the same time as Beiersdorf has been making changes to its aluminum packaging to enhance its circularity, it has also been making equally impressive changes to its plastic packaging. At year-end 2020, the company reported that 90% of its PET bottles in Europe included recycled materials—with some containing up to 97%. In addition, in Germany, the vast majority of the bottles for its Nivea Shower & Shampoo range now come from PCR waste streams, saving 2,000 tons of fossil-based virgin plastic.
Nivea’s Shower Fresh Blends line of shower gels, introduced in 2020, is packaged in PET bottles made from 97% rPET.In 2020, Nivea launched a new line of shower gels, Shower Fresh Blends, which at the time, Tracy Feehan, Global Marketing Director Nivea Body Cleansing, said was the most sustainable Nivea product line to date. “The formula is 90% naturally derived and 98% biodegradable,” she shared. “But not only the inside of this new product range is quite sustainable, the packaging also: the bottle is made out of recycled PET.”
Ninety-seven percent rPET, in fact, which Beiersdorf says eliminates 150 tons of fossil-based virgin plastic per year. The challenge, and one that most CPGs continue to struggle with as they increase the amount of recycled content in their packaging, was finding enough of the material. “[Our] Supply Chain [team] worked with their suppliers in order to secure our rPET demands, because we needed quite an amount of material and all of it in the exact same quality definition,” Feehan explained. “As well, recycled PET comes with a slightly greyish color, so we had to work on a color scheme that accepts these nuances well.”
The recently relaunched Nivea female and universal shower gel line, considered one of the front runners in terms of sustainability at Beiersdorf, contains up to 98% rPET in the bottle and 30% rPP in its cap.More recently, in mid-2022, Beiersdorf relaunched its Nivea female and universal shower gel line, which is now considered one of the front runners in terms of sustainability at Beiersdorf. That’s according to Hannah Trigg, Junior International Sustainability Communication Manager for Beiersdorf, who interviewed the core project team responsible for the development of the new product and its packaging in July.
In the interview, Sabine Schulz, Formula Development, Body Cleansing, shared that not only is the new bottle made from at least 98% recycled plastic, but it is also 26% lighter than before, allowing for the reduction of packaging-related emissions by 32%. The formulas for the shower gel products are microplastic-free and up to 99% biodegradable, as well.
Explained Julia Rainer, Packaging Development, Body Cleansing, “The packaging for this range has been designed for circularity and has been improved in several ways. For both the cap and bottle, the target was to reduce the use of material as much as possible while keeping a similar look and feel—height and front shape. The new cap now makes it possible for the product to stand upside down allowing for optimized rest-emptying. As of now, the cap has a recycling material usage of 30% recycled PP, but we are already testing 100% rPP caps, a more sustainable pump system—weight-reduced, mono-material, recyclable—and refill pouches for the near future. This range is one of the lighthouse projects since a lot of learning could be generated by testing some of the first generations of recycled materials.”
According to Orkun Kaymakci, Packaging Development, Plastics Technology, the development of the recycled PCR material for the bottle and the cap required huge internal and external collaboration. “Managing the availability and the procurement of the materials was a challenging task that we successfully overcame,” he said. “Additionally, as quality is of the utmost importance to us, we went through many testing rounds and collaborated with our external partners for the development of the PCR materials, resulting in a very high quality we are proud of.”
To account for emissions not reduced by the new packaging and product formula, Schulz shares that the product range is also 100% “climate-neutralized,” which she said means that Beiersdorf will balance the remaining emissions through certified climate projects.
The launch of the new packaging in a 250-mL size began in Q2-22, first in Germany, with other countries and sizes to follow.
Making inroads into ‘Reuse’
As part of its 4R approach, another strategy Beiersdorf has applied to its Nivea brand is “Reuse.” The company was one among the first to join the Loop circular shopping platform, based around the use of waste-free, refillable packaging. The originally online-only platform launched in New York and Paris in mid-2019, with two products from Beiersdorf’s Nivea Men After Shave range as part of its offerings.
Since 2019, Nivea has been a part of the Loop circular shopping platform, offering two after shave products in a reusable/refillable porcelain bottle.Said Dorle Bahr, Head of Environmental Sustainability for the company, at the time of the launch, “Sustainability has a long tradition at Beiersdorf. As our sustainability strategy ‘We care.’ shows, we always strive to integrate sustainability elements throughout the entire value chain into our processes. The Loop platform is an excellent way to save resources by completely reusing our product packaging.”
Added Michael Becker, Vice President Global Packaging R&D for Beiersdorf, “We are really happy to be a part of this innovative idea from the very start. We think it has tremendous potential and will help to establish reusable product packaging alongside traditional packaging for our products.”
Since then, Nivea has been part of the Loop platform as it expands to retail locations, offering two Nivea Men products—Protect & Care Hydrating After Shave Balm and Sensitive Skin After Shave Balm—in refillable 100-mL porcelain bottles.
A pilot with German drugstore DM allowed consumers to refill Nivea shower gel products in-store, using a refillable bottle.Shortly after the launch of Loop, in August 2020, Beiersdorf collaborated with German drugstore chain DM to pilot what it says was the first in-store refill system for shower gel products. The company developed the refill station with speed-to-market—or speed-to-pilot—in mind, making it simple and intuitive for consumers to use, while keeping product safety top of mind. According to Sustainability Manager Nivea/Strategic Product Designer Marta Suslow, the machine was engineered to meet the strictest Beiersdorf safety standards, for example, through special pumps, contact-free filling, and clearly defined cleaning cycles.
Through the pilot, customers at the three DM stores that participated in the trial could take an empty plastic bottle from the station and fill it with the product of their choice, either Nivea Creme Soft or Nivea Creme Sensitive shower gel. Payment was made using the printed label. To refill the bottle, the consumer would bring the bottle back to the store. Through a special barcode on the bottle, consumers were able to refill the bottle up to three times, after which they were asked to turn it in at the store checkout for hygiene reasons. Used bottles were recycled, while consumers received a new bottle and a first filling for free.
Nivea’s new EcoRefill Hand Soap system, available at Tesco in the U.K. and online, includes a refillable/reusable plastic pump bottle and dissolvable soap tablets.Beiersdorf’s third and most recent foray into Reuse is its introduction in November 2021 of its new Nivea EcoRefill Hand Soap at selected Tesco stores in the U.K. The refill system, which the company claims is a category first, consists of a refillable, 100% rPET bottle that is also fully recyclable, an easy-to-dispense pump, and concentrated cleanser tablets.
Explains Lukas Hurrie, Senior Global Brand Manager, Nivea Body Cleansing, “With the launch of the new Nivea EcoRefill Hand Soap, we set ourselves the goal to produce a tab formulation for refillable hand soap that combines a sustainable product formula and packaging approach. This new technology is contrary to how we are used to producing products since it means in this case selling a liquid hand wash without liquid/water. At the same time, we want to offer our consumers the same texture and skin feel that they are used to. That has been challenging at times.”
The 16-g soap tabs—in Lemongrass, Cotton Flower, and Hibiscus & Honeysuckle scents—are said to be mild and pH skin-friendly, 97% derived from natural ingredients, and 99% biodegradable. The clear, 250-mL reusable bottle is simply decorated, with the Nivea logo and bold type reading, “Refill, Reuse, Reduce.” The white dispensing pump is engineered to perform more than 10,000 pumping strokes. “The bottle is very durable and can be reused many times,” shares Hurrie. “However, we recommend cleaning it regularly.”
The way the product is designed to work is that the consumer fills the clear PET bottle with lukewarm water up to a line marked on the container, drops a soap tab into the water, closes the bottle, and shakes the mixture for 30 seconds, after which it’s ready to use. According to Beiersdorf, the EcoRefill is said to last around 25% longer than standard Nivea hand soap.
The EcoRefill Hand Soap product is sold in a kit that contains the bottle, dispensing pump, and one soap tab; refill tabs are sold in three-packs. Outer packaging for the starter kit and the refill tabs consists of Forest Stewardship Council-certified paperboard cartons.
Nivea launches forestry byproduct-based PP jars
In what could be viewed as both a “Reduce” and a “Replace” initiative, in June 2020, Beiersdorf, in cooperation with global chemical manufacturer SABIC, introduced its Nivea Naturally Good face care product range in packaging made from SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio of certified renewable polypropylene. From idea to implementation, the development of the new packaging took just nine months, with Berry Global joining the project to manufacture the jars.
Says Beiersdorf, the project to replace petroleum-based plastics with alternative materials began with a comprehensive analysis of the market. Beiersdorf’s requirements for the material were high, since the company aims to become more sustainable without any compromise on quality. “Our excellent skin care products obviously include a high-quality packaging, which has to fulfill many requirements,” says Becker. “On the one hand, this concerns visual and tactile features that our Nivea consumers are acquainted to, but packaging recyclability is also an important aspect for us—in line with our vision of a circular economy that we aim to support.”
A new jar for Nivea’s Naturally good face care product uses PP made from a certified renewable material, tall oil.Because producing its cosmetic packaging from a source of food such as sugarcane or corn was out of the question for Beiersdorf, it chose SABIC’s feedstock concept of second-generation raw material. The certified renewable PP is made from tall oil, which is a byproduct of the forestry industry. Explains Hannah Rasel, Senior Packaging Specialist at Beiersdorf, “The certified renewable plastic we source from SABIC has no visual effects or other adverse properties. Accordingly, the jar made of renewable PP is neither visually nor haptically distinguishable from the previous packaging. In addition, SABIC pursues a holistic sustainability approach with its feedstock concept. That convinced us.”
The new packaging is based on the principle of mass balancing, in accordance with the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC PLUS) scheme. The raw material base of tall oil replaces crude oil, and according to the mass balancing approach, it is integrated seamlessly in the manufacturing process—without the need to establish a separate production process.
Says Beiersdorf, converting the packaging to renewable plastic not only has the advantage of conserving fossil resources, but also reduces CO2 emissions. Approximately 76 g of CO2e are saved per jar produced, a reduction of around 60% compared to the fossil-based jar. The project therefore also contributes to the company’s climate target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% absolutely across the entire value chain by 2025. Any remaining emissions that cannot be avoided or further reduced during the manufacturing of the product are climate-neutralized via carbon offsetting, through afforestation projects.
“The reduction of fossil raw materials in our portfolio is of essential importance to us,” says Becker. “The use of renewable raw materials in our product packaging represents a major lever for us to reduce our carbon emissions and improve our ecological footprint. We are pushing this forward with great energy. We are proud to be the first in our mass-market segment supporting the use of PP made from renewable, plant-based raw materials as a packaging material for our cosmetic products, and we are pleased to have a strong, experienced partner with SABIC. Together, we want to contribute to the raw material change and take an important next step towards achieving our ambitious sustainability targets.”
Recyclable Paper Packaging is Important, Too
With a most of its product packaging made from plastic, Beiersdorf can’t help but spend the bulk of its time focused on innovation in this area. But, when it comes to looking for sustainable wins, no stone—or material—is left unturned.
In 2021, the company worked with Eastman to find a more sustainable paper option to the laminated cartons it was using for its premium Nivea skin-care brand in China. The goal was to develop packaging that was recyclable and lighter weight with no compromises in attractiveness, quality, or performance.
According to Eastman, its technology team worked closely with Beiersdorf and its suppliers along the value chain to qualify the process. Eastman says its cellulose esters were key in ensuring the success of the technology, which involved switching from laminated paper to film-free paper in a process called transfer metallization. With transfer metallization, metal is deposited onto the paper when it is transferred from release-coated, metallized PET film. According to Eastman, transfer metallization offers very high-quality appearance and results in packaging that is still recyclable.
“In this application, our cellulose ester release coating offers better appearance, better ink adhesion, and better-balanced anti-folding and anti-blocking properties than alternative solutions,” says Eric Zhang, Eastman Market Development Manager in Shanghai.
According to Eastman, the process has traditionally been used on very specialized packaging. “Commitments by companies like Beiersdorf to reach ambitious sustainability goals have led to its wider use,” the company adds. “Already, the outer packaging of seven new Nivea product lines have been upgraded to this recyclable solution, which also can reduce the packaging’s weight by up to 10%.”
How can our industry empower consumers to play a larger role in recycling and packaging sustainability in general? The answer, according to AIPIA’s communications director Andrew Manly, lies in smart packaging.
I make no apology for returning to the issue of Smart Packaging and its place in sustainable packaging development. Last time, l asked whether Smart and sustainable packaging are compatible, and hope l demonstrated where the synergies exist and where there is work to be done.
One of the main areas where a lot needs to happen is getting the consumers to buy into this whole ecosystem of recyclability and reuse by simply, returning or depositing the pack so the first two can occur!
So, it bothered me when l recently came across a report by RECOUP a charity and leading authority, which provides expertise and guidance across the plastics recycling value chain. In ‘Recyclability by Design – Back to Basics Case Study’ its CEO Stuart Foster states: “You cannot change the recyclability of a pack by passing the responsibility on to the consumer.” Hmm… l fundamentally disagree.
Whatever happened to ‘we’re all in this together’? For sure, packaging designers and converters need to be mindful of the environmental impact of the packaging and not, as this report alludes to, change the materials for what seems like sustainable reasons, which, when you dig deeper, are not at all ‘greener’. Morrison’s’ segway away from plastic milk containers to cartons is a prime example.
But if the consumer is not convinced that it’s worth it, or is simply bamboozled by it all, as l said in my previous comment, then collection and developing the infrastructure necessary is an uphill task. Tesco’s recent closure of its Loop project might be a sign of this difficulty.
So where does Smart Packaging fit into this? Well, it can play both an active and a passive role. The passive one is already well developed, so, for example, the Holy Grail 2.0 watermarking can make sorting of different plastics much easier. But this is hardly going to get the consumer dancing in the streets, or filling up the recycle bins at their supermarket.
Better perhaps are reuse technologies, such as the 1Less system we reported on in a recent AIPIA story. Here the consumer has to do nothing but put the used, RFID-tagged container into an intelligent bin, which does the sorting automatically, sending the used pack for cleaning and reintroduction at the outlets.
But it is in the active area where l believe Smart Packaging has a crucial role to play. Connected packaging can help consumers understand the story/journey/lifecycle of the product and its packaging. If you give people a reason to take action, they often will. Of course, it would be naive to think this is, on its own, going to revolutionise the recycling sector. But it will, for sure, go some way to empowering the consumer to be a part of the solution.
It is my firm belief that we need to stop referring to ‘the war on plastic’ and start to re-educate and reassess where the gaps are in the chain, and start to ensure there is a continuous and comprehensible narrative.
Again, in my humble opinion, it does not help that there seems to be a myriad of organisations ploughing the ‘recycle’ furrow, which is very confusing. How about a more coordinated approach and less politicizing of the issue, people?
Paul East, Head of Packaging, Recycling and Design at RECOUP says: “While packaging needs to perform its main function, to protect and preserve the product, above anything else; recyclability guidelines exist to help packaging designers to make sure their packaging is designed with recycling in mind from the outset.”
While l agree with the first part of his comment, l think those offering these ‘guidelines’ need to take a long hard look at themselves and start to adopt some Smart solutions to get a coherent message across to all the stakeholders, not just the packaging sector.
This article was created in collaboration with AIPIA (the Active and Intelligent Packaging Industry Association). Packaging Europe and AIPIA are joining forces to bring news and commentary about the active and intelligent packaging landscape to a larger audience. To learn more about this partnership, click here.
