Avantium and Plastipak sign offtake agreement to spread PEF in F&B supply chains globally

Avantium has signed a conditional offtake agreement with Plastipak to purchase the 100% plant-based, recyclable polymer polyethylene furanoate (PEF) for F&B food packages for US consumers.

Produced at Avantium’s FDCA Flagship Plant in Delfzij, the Netherlands, PEF is a plant-based polymer that can be recycled in existing PET recycling streams. Plastipak will use the material in designing and manufacturing rigid plastic containers for the F&B and consumer products industries. 

PEF is distinguished by its superior barrier properties, which extend the shelf life of F&B products. Meanwhile, its higher mechanical strength allows for less material usage and its lower processing temperature reduces energy consumption compared to traditional fossil-derived plastics. 

Tom van Aken, CEO at Avantium, says: “We are delighted with the success of the cooperation with Plastipak, making PEF available for monolayer and multilayer packaging for F&B in the US.” 

“Plastipak represents an important part of the container market for F&B, personal care products and household products. With this conditional offtake agreement with Plastipak, Avantium can further scale and build the PEF value chain.”

This week, the US Food and Drug Administration granted Avantium Food Contact Notification approval for the use of its PEF in food contact articles.

Commercial US scaling 

Over the past year, Plastipak has evaluated the application of Avantium’s PEF.

Plastipak has “successfully demonstrated” the performance of PEF in monolayer and multilayer bottle applications. 

PEF’s characteristics make it an ideal monolayer packaging material and also provide benefits when used in conjunction with PET. In multilayer PET packages, PEF is an effective barrier layer to ensure product shelf life when a single PET layer is insufficient.

Plastipak and Avantium will now further validate the use of PEF in Plastipak’s F&B packages on a commercial scale in the US market. 

“As a leading producer of plastic packaging, we are keenly focused on reducing the carbon footprint of our products and, at the same time, maximizing our resource efficiency. PEF helps enable our strategy to introduce sustainable and innovative materials and products to the market,” says Matthew Franz, chief operating officer at Plastipak Packaging.