Food Waste Fighters: Packaging for the climate change age
14 Dec 2022 | Packaging Insights
In this last webinar of the 2022 series, we will discuss consumers’ preferences for food packaging, how the packaging industry can protect human and environmental health through shelf life-extending technologies, advance waste management, and inspire global governments and F&B businesses to bolster the circular economy. Register now and submit your questions to give them the best chance to be answered!
Hello and welcome to today's webinar entitled Food Waste Fighters, Packaging for the Climate Change Age.
It's great to see so many industry professionals joining us from around the world for today's presentations and Q&A session.
My name is Louis Gore Langton.
I'm the editor of Packaging Insights and I'll be your moderator today.
We report on the latest developments, trends and innovations in the packaging industry and offer expert analysis across multiple categories through our unique partnership with Enova Market Insights.
Joining us today are 3 industry experts pioneering market research, product design, and waste management technology.
We'll be discussing the global issue of food waste, one of the world's most important causes of climate change.
If food waste was a country, it would be the world's greatest greenhouse emitter behind China and the US.
This issue has been exacerbated by recent geopolitical events such as the Ukraine war and COVID-19 pandemic.
However, state of the art technology and product designs are helping to combat food waste and reduce climate impact and food scarcity worldwide.
The first of our expert guests is Akhil Ayar, senior market analyst and projects leader at the Nova Market Insights, an international market intelligence and research company that tracks innovations and developments within the food and beverage industry.
Second up, we have Martina Wagner, who leads the group's sustainability team at Constantia Flexibles, a leading manufacturer of flexible packaging.
Martina has helped the company expand and strengthen its life cycle assessment capabilities, which are now considered one of its USPs.
Lastly, we'll have a presentation from Jack Tato Bigio, co-founder and CEO of UBQ Materials, about how the company has developed the world's first bio-based material made entirely of unsorted household waste.
Without further ado, I pass over to Akhil for the first of today's presentations.
Thank you so much for the introduction, Louis.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the webinar.
Before I start, I would like to provide a quick glance at the top trends in the packaging industry that we identified for the year 2022 in collaboration with Packaging Insights.
The number one trend is food waste fighters, followed by monomaterial mastery, bioplastic boosters, labels unleashed, and finally caps uncovered.
My presentation today will be focusing on exploring the top trend, food waste fighters, in more detail.
So, food waste fighters, what we have noticed with this top trend is that the pandemic, climate change, and the changes in the geopolitical landscape have had a major, impact on disrupting global supply chains, and this has further exacerbated concerns regarding global food waste.
Based on a recent study published in 2021, it was indicated that if food waste were a country, it would be the world's third biggest greenhouse emitter behind China and the US.
Now these concerns have brought packaging's role in preventing food waste by extending shelf life to the forefront.
According to a recent consumer survey conducted by Innova Market Insights, we found that 25% of consumers indicated that according to them, they perceive glass to have the best performance when it comes to product protection, while paper doesn't offer comparable protection.
However, we did notice that consumers seem to believe that plastic and paper perform similarly when it comes to product protection and food safety, which is far from the reality when it comes to the barrier properties of the two materials.
Now when it comes to achieving food safety and improving shelf life, companies can often play around with either the product formulation to achieve an improvement in the shelf life or play with the packaging.
However, we've seen that as the clean label movement becomes more mainstream, consumers are seeking cleaner food choices, and in turn this puts a lot more onus on the packaging materials and the extent of barrier protection that they provide, becomes all the more important.
Now, one thing that we did notice, as a consequence of the pandemic was that hygiene concerns, really led to the resurgence in plastics application, and suppliers took this as an opportunity to abate plastic aversion by addressing the added value that plastics provide in terms of shelf life and product protection.
Now while consumers were wary of the increased plastic use, the greater short-term focus on health, hygiene and safety did lead to a renewed appreciation for plastic.
Now, a lot of companies were quick to cater to these consumer demands with companies like Step Back and Co Expand launching solutions to cater to this increased concern for hygiene and safety of their products by launching a range of films that extend shelf life, from SEPAC and Coexpand launched an antimicrobial monomaterial made from PT or PP.
Now, we've seen that, while there are a lot of proponents for plastic, there have been a lot of detractors as , , who are basically looking into, sort of really reevaluating how important plastic is when it comes to the supply chain for packaging certain products.
Now the introduction of the EU ban on single-use disposable plastic, has sparked a big debate.
According to a consumer survey we conducted, a few months back, we noticed that nearly a quarter of European consumers indicated that they have already stopped using single-use plastics more than 12 months back compared to 11% of the consumers from the rest of the world.
We've also noticed that there has been a strong shift in consumer perception towards the use of plastic packaging for perishables such as fruits and vegetables among European consumers, with only 25% indicating that they prefer a protective plastic layer for fruits and vegetables compared to 46% of consumers globally.
Now, while most consumers argue that the protective layer of a protective plastic layer for fruits and vegetables is superfluous, Waningen University based in the Netherlands decided to dispel all myths and is currently investigating what the impact of the addition of this additional plastic film has on the shelf life of certain fresh produce.
The studies have found that the inclusion of a plastic film for packaging cucumbers did extend shelf life, thereby preventing food waste and also reducing the amount of dehydration that the product suffers along the supply chain.
Now this brings the important question, how important is plastic, when it comes to shelf life extension?
What are the options do we have in this case?
Could we potentially replace plastic with water soluble or edible coatings?
We've also noticed that some companies have developed stickers that slow down the natural ripening process.
But this also begs the question, perhaps, with globalization having made transportation of food easier across the globe.
I would say that rampant consumerism is also a contributor to the packaging waste problem, and a possible solution would be to shorten supply chains and have a stronger focus on local production and consumption.
Now as consumers grow wary of the plastic pollution crisis, we're seeing a lot of paper-based solutions being touted as more sustainable alternatives.
While some solutions do allow for the replacement of plastic with paper, there's usually a sustainability trade-off between the material of choice and its subsequent impact on the shelf life.
Now according to a consumer survey that we conducted, we asked consumers what would they be willing to compromise on to reduce the amount of plastic in a package, and close to 30% of consumers globally indicated that they are willing to compromise on shelf life to reduce the amount of plastic being used in a package.
Now the solutions that have been highlighted on the slide from Kari are very good examples of fit for purpose packaging.
Now coverage basically taking into account the different needs for the different markets in which they launch these solutions they developed different sandwich skillets for conflicting shelf life demands within the European market and the UK market.
So the recycled paper monoaterial skillet, illustrated on this slide is an entirely paper-based recyclable solution which is designed for shorter shelf life requirements while.
The other solution does have, which is map enabled, does have a paper, it is a paper-based solution, but it does have a plastic barrier film for a slightly longer shelf life compared to the monomaterial paper solution.
Now, while paper is suitable for packaging certain product categories, and we're seeing a lot of shift when it comes to certain specific categories with a lot of big players, for example, Nestle making an entire transition for the confectionery, a lot of the brands in the confectionery range towards paper, in order to ensure food safety, and to ensure shelf life along the supply chain, plastic remains vital for packaging certain types of foods, and one thing to always keep in mind is that.
The potential food waste impact on the environment, also needs to be weighed against the impact of the production and the use of the packaging.
Now when it comes to shelf life extension, we're seeing that there are many avenues that have emerged to tackle the issue of food waste.
We've seen that over the past 2 years, several suppliers have launched packaging with antimicrobial technology to tackle the issue of cross-contamination at the point of sale and also put consumers at ease.
Some of these solutions come from Sure Flexibles and from BioMaster's collaboration with Asda.
Now we've also seen some other interesting developments in the fight against food food waste, this.
A lot of different ways with which packaging can sort of help food waste, but it also can sometimes be a bottleneck when it comes to extending shelf life.
So, packaging is used as a canvas to communicate what the expiry date of the product would be or the use by date would be.
However, we see that quite often this leads to a lot of food waste, at the supermarkets or and also we see a lot of food waste within households.
So in an effort to reduce food waste, related to unconsumed yogurts and unconsumed dairy, co op and also similarly Morrison's basically planned on, scrapping the use-by dates for its own brand, and Morrison's did that for Ala supplied milk.
Now the whole reason behind this shift from use by to best before, is to encourage shoppers to check the quality of the product and use visual and sensory cues to establish suitability for consumption.
Another approach that you're seeing is leveraging digital technology to reduce food waste in dairy.
A recent study that was conducted by Cornell found that consumers surveyed were ready to embrace food waste fighting QR codes on milk cartons.
Now with dates printed on milks, consumers typically tend to buy the most distant dated milk, but that leaves a lot of drinkable milk on store shelves which retailers threw out later.
So the adoption of this technology could potentially help consumers discard less food waste by providing them with a more accurate indication of the best by dates for the product and also to provide additional information on when the product can be consumed until and to provide reminders if you're running out on something.
So we're seeing a lot of different avenues when it comes to tackling food waste, and it will be interesting to see how this, sort of develops in the future with alternate materials coming in.
To the picture as.
So, with that, I would like to bring my presentation to a close.
I can keep talking on and on, but unfortunately, that's all the time I have for my presentation.
So, thank you.
And with that, I'd like to hand the floor back to Louis.
Great, thank you for the presentation, Akhil.
Next up we have Martina Wagner, who will give us some insights into flexible packaging designs and how Constantia flexibles, is the latest developments are combining shelf life, with emissions reductions.
Thank you, Luis, for the introduction.
I am happy to be with you, you here today.
I would like to start off.
With a brief introduction into Constancia Flexible before talking more about the topic, of my today's presentation, which is, the role of flexible packaging and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
So, briefly, Consumer Flexibles in a nutshell, we are a global flexible packaging producer, who produces, flexible packaging for the consumer and pharmaceutical industry in 38 production sites worldwide.
Our products are, aluminum-based, plastic-based, or paper-based.
And we are headquartered in Vietnam.
Now going forward to the topic of today.
Climate change is actually a material sustainability topic for Constancia Flexible since many years.
We have therefore already, in 2018 set an ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target, which was back in 2018 already approved by the Science-based Target Initiative.
This goal focuses, on our scope 12, and three emissions.
As a converter of packaging materials, our largest footprint, share of our footprint actually stems from our raw materials that we use.
We design our packaging to, bring value to, our customers, and, but at the same time, at the lowest environmental impact.
When we do that, we still may not only focus on, the materials we use and their combination.
But to ensure that they are actually reduced in their environmental impact, we need to make sure that they keep their key function which is to protect valuable goods.
Why that?
Because especially flexible packaging saves more resources than it uses for protecting and preserving valuable goods.
Why is this so important in the context of greenhouse gas emissions every year, we know that, a lot of valuable products are, lost each year.
And at the same time, while studies clearly indicate that packaging plays a minor role in the environmental footprint of the packaging of the product, while overall having , A key role in actually making sure that the product arrives at its final destination and for consumption.
On the left side you can see here, several studies compare, showing the percentage of environmental impact of the packaging on different food products.
At the same time, there's a gap in the perception of the role of packaging, as only 35% of consumers actually were behind the statement of saying that packaging can prevent and avoid food waste.
As a study indicated by an Austrian project, Stop Waste Safe Food.
Several years ago.
Why is this especially also important for flexible packaging?
Because it creates the perfect fit, meaning it can be adaptable to the product.
Thereby protecting it at the lowest environmental impact for the low resource consumption.
Studies also show that if we're only focusing on, circular economy and design for recycling, while not keeping a life cycle perspective, we therefore may increase the overall use of materials, and they were actually increasing the overall environmental impact of the packaging on the market.
That's why we advocated Constancia.
To keep a life cycle perspective when designing products for the circular economy.
How do we actually address that at Constancia flexible with our 360 degrees quillutions approach.
We have, launched the Aquialutions brand several years ago.
It has focuses on, PE materials, with our brand Ecola, Ecoverre for PP.
Eco paper and eco aloe with all these materials, and products, we design them in order to keep their key function, make sure our products continue to preserve food and reduce waste, while at the same time through innovation towards mono materials which have a high vari, still have a high barrier, reducing the overall impact.
And these exclusions have already been adopted by several FNC companies in different markets.
And with this customer centric approach, we've defined together with our customers, solutions that fit the product needs, protect valuable goods, while reducing the environmental impact.
With that, I'm at the end of my presentation and hand back over to Louis.
Brilliant, thanks for another insightful presentation, Martina.
Last but not least, we have UPQ CEO Tato Bigio, who's going to explain how the Israeli clean tech company's patenting technology is turning landfill waste back into thermoplastics for industries such as the food and beverage.
Thank you very much for your invitation.
The the problem of waste is is addressed already I think in this presentation.
It's a huge, huge, issue for humanity today because we have really created a linear economy over the last 400 years and the amount of recycled content or recycled materials created out of waste is minimal.
We're talking about less than 10% on a global base, so almost 9090 to 95% of waste will end up in, in landfill, creating enormous hazards and losing valuable natural resources.
That could keep, our economies growing and, and provide potentially, a natural resource to create other products.
Regrettably today no technology has been able to address that.
UBQ has basically created technology where we use a household waste, the entire household waste.
To create a new thermoplastic material, in other ways we're creating a plastic substitute made entirely out of everything that you find in the household waste organic materials like food residues, cardboard, paper, dirty, not dirty diapers, used diapers, of course, all the plastics, including the packaging.
Recyclable and non-recyclable, everything that is left as residual waste after the system have picked all the valuable materials that they thought they should pick, we UBQ stand on the line of landfills.
We will take that residual waste and convert it entirely without the need of separation into one homogeneous thermoplastic material that is made entirely out of waste.
As opposed to the existing plastic materials that are made entirely out of oil-based resins.
This is in a snapshot what we do.
You see here the household waste.
We turn it into little pellets.
Pellets are the form of, of, of that the, the current plastic industry supplies, manufacturers in order for them to be to make goods.
UBQ is supplied to end manufacturers in order for them to create sustainable climate positive, bio-based and recyclable end products.
So in other words, what we have created really is an alternative to a circular eco to a linear economy or a or to a recyclable economy where you are left again with a lot of materials that cannot be recycled either because they are dirty or because they were not picked or because you cannot do anything with them like with organics that are already contaminated and of course they mix plastics.
That typically involve also a lot of multi layer plastics which typically come many of them from the packaging industry so in a way what we're doing is we're giving a solution to materials that are I'm not seeing the.
To, to materials that are not, that are not, recyclable in the, in the, in the existing, , way of doing things, in the current economies that, that we live in.
The impact of 1 ton of UBQ is tremendous.
We have created an LCA with Quantis, a leading, LCA, company in the world, and it says that basically 1 ton of UBQ is equivalent to the impact of 950 pine trees, to the environment.
As we move forward with establishing plants, thousands of tons of UBQ material every year, this impact is like creating millions of forests or trees in forests, just by taking that household waste out of landfills and avoiding all the methane emissions.
That is one of the most impactful gasses that exist today.
OK, this slide now is showing, some samples of pictures of UBQ made with UBQ.
This is, basically end products, all of them created with UBQ material.
We ship the material to our suppliers, and they, they will create more sustainable, end products to fit the market demands today of recycled content, bio-based, climate positive materials like UBQ.
So we do have an enormous.
Impact today in the manufacturing industry, but more important, we are using materials that are kept unrecyclable today.
So if the packaging industry is doing a great service to humanity by creating materials that extend the lifetime of products in supermarkets and in shops, the problem is the end of life of those materials and sometimes we tend to believe that because they have a problem.
End of life on the base they're bad but they're not.
The issue is just the end of life.
So UBQ material is coming with a technology that really can address that problem because all these materials are, brought together into into a UBQ material that is then, circled back to the market and then can be recycled time and time again because as I told you before our products made with UBQ material are highly recyclable.
Here you have a a a a a a product with no UVQ.
Same product with UVQ.
They look the same.
They feel the same.
The manufacturing process are exactly the same just that ours is made out of waste.
It depletes landfills.
It, it, it, supports a circular economy and it prevents CO2, whereas the other does exactly the opposite.
Leading brands in the world working with UBQ.
Some of our, big stars are McDonald's, PepsiCo, Nestle, Mercedes-Benz, AB InBev, but there are many others that are less famous in the manufacturing of plastic products that are using already UBQ material integrated in the product lines.
Here you have some samples of what we do.
Obviously the company's extremely covered by the media.
We have won a num a very big number of prizes, and we're certified in order to be able to supply to the top companies just like Mercedes-Benz with the all the standard and highest standard validations or certifications that the market demands from us.
The next planter of UBQ will be made in the Netherlands.
We have one in Israel that is supplying 5000 tons of UVQ material.
The next one in the Netherlands opening in mid 2023 will be supplying 80,000 tons of UVQ material to the market which, as I told you before, has an enormous impact on CO2 sequestration because all the avoidance of, methane that we create on the process.
Just to show you what UBQ looks like in our thank you page, glad to continue with this discussion and to answer your questions.
Thank you.
Brilliant, thanks Tato.
So we'll now go into the Q&A round.
We've had a number of questions come in.
I will start with a question for you, Tato.
And that is, could UBQ's thermoplastic ever be used for food contact packaging?
And do you have a timeline for achieving this goal and what are the challenges you face here?
UBQ today is being used mostly in durable products and also in near food contact applications just like the McDonald's tray where you typically put your your food by the way I, I have a little sample here.
This is a McDonald's tray.
This is made out of UBQ material which is entirely made out of weight.
Here you see the UVQ logo.
So this is near food talk contact.
Food contact is a longer process we're working on it.
But please remember that one of the big advantages of UBQ is that we can turn around materials that were unrecyclable into durable products, and we like durable products, right, because we want, we want things to last and not to be used one time.
Of course the market for packaging and one time use is, is, is big enough, so we should address it, and that is why we're working also on that certification.
Brilliant, I'll just follow up with 11 other question that's come in.
Does this technology not justify the continuation of landfilling as a waste disposal method?
One of the, really one of the visions of the company is to expand our footprint, , with manufacturing facilities all over the world to address the issue of landfills.
Regrettably, landfills are, are, are monumentally a monumentally huge problem.
Humanity is producing 2.2 billion tons of household waste.
OK, so if all plastic products would be made with waste, basically using UBQ material.
We would still be left with over a billion tons of waste that someone else has to take care of.
So yes, you would use an extraordinary, good, , solution for household waste, but the number, the amount is so big that we're really, you know, support and the, , other technologies to, to, to develop things to do with the household waste and avoid downfall.
OK, great.
Then I have another question that's coming for Akil.
And that is, can non-plastics design alternatives like water soluble coatings become cost competitive with traditional plastic packaging?
All right, that's a good question.
I think with, any alternative solution, scalability remains the biggest roadblock, in achieving cost competitiveness.
When we look at traditional plastics and other, more established materials, like paperboard, etc.
They've had decades to achieve this.
So while discussing this as a potential alternative, it's also important to note that, in this case, I was referring to.
Use of water soluble coatings as a potential plastic alternative for fresh produce, because when we look at, because we have to look at it case by case, it's not something that can be applied across the board, to packaging wet products, for example, because water solubility in itself, would probably hamper the effectiveness of such barriers over the course of the products transit through the supply chain.
When it comes to water-based coatings, we have seen some developments over the past couple of years.
So when we look at the biodegradable aqueous barrier coatings towards the end of 2020, Dynama Scientific and Camira, joined forces to develop a biodegradable aqueous barrier for coating paper and board to serve as an alternative to plastics.
So we are seeing companies taking some steps in order to sort of assist in the large scale deployment and uptake of these, but again, when it comes to cost competitiveness, I think there is some way to go, to compete with traditional plastics.
Right.
And on that note, a question come in for Martina, and that's what should governments and policymakers do to help circularize the flexible plastics economy.
Thanks for the question.
Obviously, we need to develop towards the circular economy.
We actually need companies to design packaging towards recyclability and for recycling, but we also need development of infrastructure.
That's why it's key for the regulators to, on the one hand, make sure that there's harmonization.
As as development of infrastructure, when it comes, for example, to the definition of what it can be considered recyclable, it is key that this definition allows for innovation, while also steering development towards more circular packaging.
And for example, with recycled content targets, those can be a key driver for end markets of packages, secondary packaging materials that are recycled.
But at the same time, those targets need to be achievable as and consider the needs of, for example, primary packaging that packs protects food products and therefore needs to meet requirements for food compact as.
Brilliant.
Akhil or Tato, do you have any, perspective on that question?
I do have one, I, I, I, I, I am very strong believer that the that there is a gap between the expectations that we have as as human beings on the impact that we can, do to our environment, , OK with the current situation we live in, for a circular economy to happen and we are all into this.
You need all the stakeholders to be to work together.
You need framework.
You need a legal system that supports all these developments and you need the collaboration not only of companies but of value chain entire value chains along, along, along the systems and countries extremely complicated of course doable, but in the meantime, in order to bridge the gap.
We need the really technologies that can address, these issues.
Ubique is one example of a technology that is really helping, OK, deal, with an issue that otherwise, it will take years to others, which is taking all the stuff that goes to landfill and converting to one usable material with a competitive, with value proposition.
But I do think that the, that the other technologies need to come up and for that, it's not only innovators and entrepreneurs, it's also the market trend that the, the support from governments, institutions regulatory framework like, you were saying before, a recycled packet, a minimum recycled content.
OK, all these, all these, , eco, changes in the ecosystem to support, , innovation and capital markets that do believe that, the new economies will come with a, with a good price for the environment, and therefore there will be capital and access for these entrepreneurs to come up, with, with extraordinary, ideas, otherwise.
I don't think we have enough time just to do it the normal way.
OK, any thoughts?
Yeah, I think if I were just to add to that, I think, Tato hit the nail right on the head when it comes to mentioning the fact that, you know, you need all stakeholders across the entire value chain involved in this, based on some of the research that we have done, we've also noticed that because ultimately consumers need to be.
Part of the solution, we have been part of the problem, and now we need to really be part of the solution as.
So I think that is one other aspect that really needs to, be addressed in terms of educating consumers and informing them of how exactly they need to dispose of their waste, but it's not just a matter of disposing it.
There has to be infrastructure to effectively process it because that can be a bit demotivating.
Let's say if you're processing it like if you're separating all the waste at home and then eventually it all goes into one landfill.
And then you're like, OK, why even bother, but one thing that we have noticed, also through the consumer research that we have done is that consumers are more aware of the fact that they need to play a part, so they are part of the problem and have to be part of the solution and it can't just be a matter of, pointing blame on one party or the other when it comes to like the different stakeholders involved.
So I think it is a.
Monumental challenge as that was already mentioned when we just look at the volume of food waste, but I think especially with some of these innovation coming in innovations coming in and driving more innovation would address it as we go along we can't wait for a solution to come up and address it all at once.
There has to be like continuous innovation, to make sure that we're moving towards the circular economy goals that we have set.
Great.
And that leads into another question that's that's been sent in, which is that plastics proponents fear that food waste will increase, alongside legislation like the EU's single-use plastics ban.
So what could be done to speed up non-plastic alternatives, both by consumers and policymakers.
That's open for for anyone to answer.
I am, I am, I am a strong believer in plastics.
I, I want to ruin the party here.
The plastics are an extraordinary material.
They have allowed humanity to come to places we never thought possible, and, and, and, and, and, and therefore the issue is not actually the plastic but the way we process in the system the leftovers of the plastic the end of life of plastic that is a real issue, OK?
Because if there was something to do with that packaging that is doing an enormous service to humanity, you put a chicken with no packaging, plastic packaging, it will probably, you know, be destroyed in, in a few hours.
You put that with the packaging, with the correct packaging, it can take a week.
That chicken would go to landfill.
It would emit much more methane than the alternative of using that plastic, OK.
But yet again we don't like the end of life of plastics and that is where we need to put a lot of effort, OK and this is systematic and this is technology so I would go rather to into into that route UBQ material, by the way, is another good alternative.
To a a common base plastic resins because they're made out of oil they're very expensive to the pocket and to the environment.
UBT is not that so yet again I'm coming back with the issue solutions that take care of end of life and alternative materials that are good for the environment.
That is the way I see it because while we do these things, the the the the the stakeholders that need to be working together to create a circular eco economy including what was said before on the responsibility of the consumers all the way to you know to the waste management companies governments regulators and the multinational institutions that is a big party.
So these things have, have to work together, and yet again the problem in my opinion is the end of life and not the material.
Agree to those points.
At Constancia Flexibles, we work with, different substrates to create the products, that have those, key benefits, as as preserve valuable goods.
It's not about the material, it's about working together along the value chain by designing for recycling, but also engaging in industry initiatives, as together with the regulators in order to actually achieve.
The necessary infrastructure to keep materials in a circle.
This should not depend on the, on the substrate.
OK, and then one more question for you, Akhil, you mentioned shelf life extending stickers and how they can be better utilized by the industry.
Could you elaborate a bit more on that?
Yeah, so, when it comes to shelves are extending stickers, we've seen that they've already been present on the market for a while, although again, the application of these is limited a lot more to fresh produce like fruits and vegetables.
There's a company, based in the US, if I'm not wrong, it's a startup.
They had a solution which was independently tested and scientifically proven to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, by an additional, by an additional 2 weeks.
I think the name of the company was, Sticks Fresh.
I think what might be a challenge when it comes to, the wide scale adoption of such technologies is the limited application.
That is one thing, but I think also, while it might be helping slow down the natural ripening process, it could still keep the fruits, sort of, it doesn't make the product, impervious to physical damage which could still sort of exacerbate food spoilage.
So I think it this is part of it.
But physical damage and protection against that over the course of the supply chain is also what has a big impact on food waste, let's say, when it comes to this particular, segment.
So, yeah, I think.
That that's probably like a bit of a roadblock in my opinion.
Very great.
And then one more for you, Tato, given your recent expansion into the Netherlands, what could the impact be on Europe's food waste rates, and how can industry players help promote UBQ's technology?
Can you repeat the first part of the question?
I apologize.
So, so with your recent expansion into the Netherlands, what could the impact be on Europe's food waste rates and how can industry players promote UBQ's technology?
The impact of this plant, is, is, is, limited to its capacity, but the, the capacity is, is quite big, so we are gonna be addressing, a good part of the waste of all the region we're sitting in.
Which is the Brabant region at the at the south of, of, of, of the Netherlands, and we will be creating a material that saves the carbon emissions.
So we're also aligned with the, , targets of the region to drop carbon emissions, , to the levels that they intend before 2030.
We are gonna be helping that massively.
How to support UBQ is, is, is the same thing as how to support the other technologies is promoting them is, giving, all the necessary access to permitting, , every support at the political, legal, and framework level, just to, you know, give favorable conditions for this new ecosystem to exist.
Remember that the plastics industry has been around us for the last 100 years and these huge companies have have created enormous industries, with a, you know, very efficient, cost competitive, big scale so when you come with a new idea and you are small and you have these giants in front of you, there are some someone help you a bit, you know, cross the cross the difficulties of an environment that is already created, that you're now.
We are positively disrupting but you're disrupting so to be a positive disruptor you need support.
Legal framework is super important, , capital markets, grants for, for technologies to develop.
I want to give you an example.
Germany is not the best in the world with sun, but they decided they want to support the solar industry system and they, they really give preferred rates for solar electricity today.
Technologies have evolved because there was demand for the solar panels to make solar panels competitive to coal plants, even to benzene plants.
So remember just 10 years ago solar panels were like 4 times more expensive per kilowatt hour.
Today they are more competitive.
That happened over time because there was support because there was a a system that that that give priority to to these technologies to evolve and that is what we expect from from not only from Europe but from of course other countries who are leading the way of the world.
OK, great.
And then very briefly, Martina, I'd just like to ask you to circle back on something you mentioned earlier.
Do you feel that the flexible packaging industry is being given enough support, especially given the upcoming packaging and packaging waste directives.
I think the industry is clearly showing the drive to, to innovate towards a circular economy and leveraging those benefits that flexible packaging has due to its low resource consumption and product to pack ratio.
What it does, however, still need is, clear guidelines, and the framework to actually for companies to adopt, those, available, products that are designed for recycling, and harmonize, the infrastructure across Europe.
And strongly also make sure that.
The flexible packaging is actually collected, sorted, and recycled, at a higher scale, across, You Right, so different perspectives and and policy level and consumer level are needed.
OK, , that's all we have time for today.
Akhil, Martina, and Tato, it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insights with us.
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