Beyond The Headlines: Aldi’s paper packaging, Greiner Packaging equips porridge brand with recyclable solution

05 Jul 2024 --- This week in industry news, Aldi started packaging its oats in paper-based material. Meanwhile, Greiner Packaging supplied its cardboard-plastic technology to Symington and DS Smith won P&G awards. 

In brief: Launches and releases
Aldi introduced paper packaging on its Everyday Essentials Porridge Oats in all UK stores. All the supermarket’s porridge oat products are now free of plastic packaging, including its Everyday Essentials, Organic and Scottish Porridge Oats. The latest move on its Everyday Essentials Porridge Oats is expected to save around 57 metric tons of plastic annually. It forms part of the supermarket’s target to reduce plastic packaging by 50% by 2025 and follows a switch to 100% recyclable cardboard packaging on all own-brand porridge pots last year.

Innovia Films extended its range of sustainable films that have been marketed under the Encore brand name. The extension to the Encore range of sustainable BOPP films includes the use of chemically recycled polymer for food contact applications and the addition of mechanically recycled PCR for non-food. Innovia is also working with Prevented Ocean Plastic and developed a film with 30% POP material. In all cases, the key functionality of the BOPP remains intact and is “comparable to virgin-grade materials.”

Costco’s Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken in a bag.Costco’s Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken now comes in a bag. Based on projected rotisserie chicken sales in 2024 in the US, the new packaging will save an estimated 17 million pounds (7,700,000 kg) of plastic annually. The bag also takes less space to transport — one pallet of the new bags is equivalent to five pallets of the old packaging, so Costco can remove 1,000 of its freight trucks from the road each year. The use of fewer transportation vehicles will eliminate over 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

In brief: Collaborations and acquisitions 
Symington partnered with Greiner Packaging to apply the company’s K3 r100 self-separating variant of its cardboard-plastic packaging solution to its Oatburst instant porridge brand. The K3 cardboard-plastic cup is convenient, features an appealing look and is sustainable. It features a “unique” tear tab so that consumers can intuitively separate the cardboard outer wrap from the lightweight plastic cup to enable recycling. With the latest development, K3 r100, the materials separate themselves before they reach the near-infrared detection system at the recycling facility, leading to proper detection, sorting and recycling. K3 r100, therefore, enables cardboard and plastic to be assigned to the correct material streams during the initial sorting process before being recycled.

Packaging solutions provider Emballator acquired Avez. Avez, located in Wattrelos, France, is a supplier to customers across diverse sectors, including the chemical and paint industries. The company specializes in manufacturing industrial tin metal packaging tailored for hazardous materials. The Emballator Group offers a wide range of packaging solutions, with a variety of products in different materials, for market segments such as paint, chemical engineering, pharmaceuticals, food, beauty and personal care.

Consumer Convenience Technologies (CCT) partnered with broker Ur Bofill to expand CCT’s Eeasy Lid availability to consumers in Spain and Latin America. The patented Eeasy Lid is designed to help brands provide an unprecedented level of accessibility to their jarred food products. The Eeasy Lid allows consumers to vent a vacuum-sealed jar by simply pressing a button on the lid, reducing the amount of torque needed to twist off the lid by up to 50%. CCT produces the 63 mm lug Eeasy Lid at its 16,000 square foot technology center at the company’s headquarters in Dayton, US. CCT has the capability to produce roughly 800 aluminum lug Eeasy Lids per minute — more than 250 million annually.

Modiform, a global supplier of cultivation, transport and packaging systems for the horticultural supply chain, minimized the use of fossil-based virgin plastics in a new partnership with Solinatra. Modiform and Solinatra are jointly taking the lead in developing and marketing biobased and biodegradable growing pots. Made by Modiform using Solinatra material, these fully natural, plant-based pots offer growers a 100% natural, fossil and PFAS-free, cold soil compostable solution. After the cultivation period, they can be planted straight into soil with the plants, where they biodegrade.Greiner’s K3 r100 tech for Symington.

Brazil-based Cajuina São Geraldo beverage company worked with Canpack to put its cashews soda São Geraldo drink into 350 mL cans for the first time. The company’s aim was to bring this memorable taste of the region to consumers across the country. São Geraldo now partnered again with Canpack Brazil on a limited edition of nine São Geraldo cans to mark this year’s June Festivals and the exuberant night of São João. The cans feature specially commissioned graphics representing artists, characters, architecture and symbols from the nine northeastern states of Brazil, illustrating the rich cultural diversity of the region.

Plast Nordic entered into a collaboration with Norner. Norner is recognized as one of Europe’s leading experts in the polymer industry, boasting over 40 years of experience. Based in Porsgrunn, Norway, Norner operates advanced laboratories, polymerization units and process pilot plants at an industrial scale. Norner is owned by SCG Chemicals in Thailand and serves over 700 customers in more than 60 countries. In the Nordic region, there are over 400,000 tons of PET waste. With a completely new industrial solution, approximately 97% of this can be chemically recycled back into the same raw materials it was made from. 

In brief: Awards
DS Smith was awarded a Procter & Gamble (P&G) Supplier Excellence Award 2024 for Baby Care and Fabric and Home Care packaging solutions. Every two years, P&G selects supplier partners who have consistently performed at high levels as determined by broad-based quantitative and qualitative evaluations from P&G employees and are selected for the nomination of a P&G Excellence Award. The winners are a part of the P&G Supplier Ecosystem and are recognized for helping the company serve its customers and consumers. DS Smith is the first supplier to win a P&G Excellence Award simultaneously in two categories and has successfully met the judge’s criteria across the four selection themes of “Commercial, Operations, Innovation and Sustainability, and Citizenship.”

By Natalie Schwertheim