April 2008
By Joanne Hunter
The raw cellulose material, its treatment and the decorative processes that go to make containers and wrapping affect the proper functioning of the packaging industry chain. The rule that says: "What goes in must come out", has implications for industry, arguably, as crucial as the nature and quality of food ingredients are for the final consumer. Where packaging components are sourced and supply chain methods are under scrutiny and sector leaders are taking action.
Manufacturers must accept responsibility and be accountable for what they produce for handling and consumption – by systems and people, alike – and in the paper loop context this has particular connotations.
At European level there are moves afoot to ensure the safety of packaged food and avoid the single substance scares that crop up from time to time. There was, for instance, the discovery in 2005 of a baby milk product, which showed traces of the ink-curing chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX), which was due to migration from the packaging. The Swedish packaging company Tetra Pak stopped using it despite the existence of "no known health effects".
Post-consumer packaging material taken into the waste stream similarly has to be "health-checked" for potential contaminants. This is the subject of a huge undertaking by the paper and board industry this year.
A joint industry and European Commission project called FACET (Flavours, Additives and Contact materials Exposure Task) is addressing safety and traceability in food packaging. It will cover all types of packaging materials and the manufacturing of composite material packaging products such as paper and board and foil.
Europe's packaging industry is embarking on a major data collection exercise to avoid "uninvited" substances that can enter the food chain. The aim is to develop a system whereby the amount of migrant substance found in a foodstuff is directly equated to the real level of consumer exposure.
FACET has a Euro 6 million budget spread over four years. The packaging part of the project is expected to take up to 52% of the total budget. Eleven packaging industry associations including the Brussels-based Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) represent paper and board. Consortium members each will pay Euro 10,000/yr for four years. University College Dublin is acting as the overall coordinator of the FACET Industry Group.
Taking away the "scare" factor
Retail-vended food such as pizza boxes is affected as well as general retail packaging. It is understood that bulk food packaging will probably not be part of the project, and only where surface area to volume ratio approaches that of retail packages. Data on multilayer materials where plastic is the food-contact layer, will be collected by the plastics converting industry.
By 2012, exposure-modelling software and supporting databases should be freely and publicly available. According to CEPI, it will mark a complete move away from the existing situation of burdensome testing procedures and its failure to prevent single substance scares.
CEPI says FACET needs to succeed because ever improving analytical capabilities will drive increasing investigations into the nature of all substances whether they are added deliberately, arise due to recycling or present as "reaction products" or "additive impurities".
A successful outcome would take paper and board regulation towards the vision of a new industry guidelines document. CEPI, leading the initiative, believes it is in the interest of paper manufacturers and converters to have rules with "genuine and direct connection to human safety" and not based on worst-case scenarios.
"It's customer driven; the customer likes certainty," says Nigel Barnwell, technical manager of CEPI. "The industry did not want to be forced down the legislation of plastics route and this is a voluntary measure".
It is often the case that manufacturers are not told to what specific use a particular product will be put, Barnwell explains. So a "correction factor" will be introduced. For example, when a material is given a correction factor of 1 it is suitable for any food type and a correction factor of 5 means it has explicit uses.
Due to commercial considerations it would be a self-regulating procedure, not compulsory. Paper and board manufacturers are not expected to use the information in product marketing. The completed draft version is awaiting comment from food producers and legislators.
On the design side, Swedish papermaker Billerud and a Scandinavian packaging design agency have formed a joint venture to offer fast-tracked innovation and packaging development in the retail food, pharmaceuticals and fast moving consumer goods sectors.
The consultancy called Nine takes its name from the nine business processes it uses to bring packaging solutions to point-of-sale. Nine claims its integrated approach could cut development time to just six or eight months, from a year or even two.
PPI asked Nine spokesperson Jon Haag whether, with Billerud as partner, the consultancy would focus on single-material solutions?
"No, often we need a barrier or sealing application, making two-ply common. But of course there is a wish to use mono-material to make recycling taxes lower and facilitate reuse of materials."
Will Nine cover all packaging sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary, shelf-ready and transport packaging? "Mainly primary, but the complete concept is necessary in many cases," answers Haag.
About decisions to do with material type and sourcing, Haag says, "We are neutral in choice of material and suppliers." However, "We see the strong eco trend as a potential for us to use our skills in fibre-based materials. Saying that, clients ask for fibre-based seven or eight times out of 10."
Does Haag believe the linking of raw material producer and designer may help widen the acceptance and use of paper and board in functional applications in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector?
"Certainly, as long as concepts will minimize weight and handling time during transit, store and in retail, our ideas can make new way for paper and board usage.
Communication Through Product
About clients' packaging priorities: Is there hope that product quality can shift the focus away from cost cutting at the manufacturing stage?
Haag explains, "As we see the development, marketing departments might have to 'invest' in product and packaging development as opposed to cost cutting for the production management. We call it Communication Through Product, where built-in benefits and brand emotions in products and their housing can be the best marketing channel of all."
Perceived higher quality on the shelf can lead to better profit margins for brand owners and retailers: Is this a viable argument?
"What we see today is that slightly over 50% of all purchases in grocery stores are classed as premium products - high quality, eco labelled, ready meals, fine selections, etc," Haag says. "Consumers are willing to pay a little extra today, if they really can see or feel the difference. Many trends are pointing in this direction, for example, organic food, raw food, local produce, less carbon footprint, additive awareness and more."
Can a switch to paper and board be judged as 'trading up' in packaging terms as a move to raise price point expectations? Haag adds, "We realize that the old-fashion paper feeling is a unique selling point (USP) in itself sometimes. FMCGs (manufacturers) like it 'raw' - to use brown sack paper for chocolate, or to open well (using one-sided corrugated) to get an authentic touch for 'handmade products'.
"To succeed in this," Haag continues, "we have to change graphics and image manner. A close-up of wet tomatoes is not suitable to print on paper with a raw surface, rather a sketch of a farming landscape. Look at food packaging today: most [packs] have photo images of steaming dishes, hot vegetables or portraits of people. A white paper bag with a beautiful sketch can really stand out on the shelves today."
Perhaps it is then a marketer's decision to 'trade smarter' that will gain competitive advantage. But, arguably, an investment in 'designer packaging' is 'trading up' too.
The carton as the advertisement
Brand superiority and commercial advantage for packaging paper and board could lie in proof that it can achieve greater consumer impact than another material. The carton sector recently published a study to show that the flat surfaces of cartons assist brand recognition.
"The main thrust of Pro Carton at the moment is on persuading people to see cartons as a form of advertising," says Richard Dalgleish, managing director of Pro-Carton, the association of European cartonboard and carton manufacturers.
"With general advertising becoming more and more fragmented, and with the fact that over 70% of all purchasing decisions are made in front of the shelf, cartons are being used increasingly to 'sway' consumers into buying a specific brand. Many of the brand owners are recognising this and looking at packaging more as a result".
Findings seem to show carton formats are better at prompting brand recall than plastic bag alternatives.
Groups of people took part in tests in Belgium, Spain, Poland, Germany, France and the UK. Images were flashed up of single products displayed in cartons and bags in a retail context for spans of time between 0.05 and 0.5 of a second. Each person was asked to identify the brands.
A test involving frozen foods compared the responses of a Belgian sample group to a brand of potato croquettes that uses two different pack formats. When they were shown photographs for just 0.05 sec, 22% of respondents recognized the brand in a carton and 7% in a plastic bag. In the UK, people were shown photographs of branded chicken bites for 0.2 sec, after which 39% of them recognized the brand in a carton and 7% in flexible plastic.
In Spain, in a comparison between two pasta brands, 84% of respondents after 0.5 sec correctly named the brand in a carton and 35% of them recalled the brand in flexible plastic. A similar pasta test In the UK revealed an 80% success rate for recognition in a carton and 5% in plastic.
In France, mayonnaise in a traditional jar was tested against a tube version inside a folded carton. Although people more quickly recognized the product in a jar, more than five times as many respondents correctly identified the brand in a carton after a 0.10 sec glimpse of the image.
Poland produced anomalous results with less differentiation between levels of recall of brands in cartons and bags.
With, on one side, sustainability demands working in favor of paper and board and, on the other, brands being told the marketing benefits, the future for the sector should be looking quite rosy.
Joanne Hunter is a freelance writer based in Brussels, Belgium.
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