DS Smith slashes carbon emissions with Direct Box for Delhaize grocery deliveries

28 Oct 2020 --- Increasing home deliveries prompted by COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures have motivated Belgian supermarket Delhaize to design a new delivery package called Direct Box with DS Smith.

The 527 x 349 x 207 Direct Box is made from fully recycled and recyclable cardboard. The e-commerce box’s redesign saves a total of 160 tons of packaging material annually, taking 32 fewer trucks off the road and over 1,000 pallets reduced in storage space. 

The savings amount to a global cut of 87.2 tons of CO2 – equivalent to a 435,000 km long petrol car journey, Remko Berkhout, marketing and communications manager from DS Smith’s packaging division, tells PackagingInsights.

The Direct Box can also be reused as a corrugated tray. “It incorporates built-in reinforcement on the handles, which ensures an extra-strong Direct Box,” adds Nico Buelens, project manager e-commerce operations of Delhaize.“There has been a seismic shift in the way consumers are shopping,” says packaging CEO Rossi.

Rapid e-commerce revolution “here to stay”
Businesses both large and small have been forced to rapidly initiate or adapt e-commerce offerings – a process that may have taken years without the imperative provided by the global pandemic, says Berkhout.

“According to research done by DS Smith this summer, lockdown may well have permanently changed European consumers’ buying habits and the vast majority of Europeans plan to stick to their lockdown online buying habits.”

The company’s research indicates that the “rapid e-commerce revolution is here to stay.” Eighty-nine percent of survey participants revealed they would continue to shop online at the same level or even more post-lockdown.

An “overwhelming” 91 percent of European consumers now feel confident about buying items online, adds Berkhout.

Divergent online shopping
One of the categories seeing the biggest increases during COVID-19 is groceries, with 41 percent of Europeans reporting an increase in home food deliveries, Berkhout highlights. 

DS Smith’s proprietary research found that an “overwhelming” 91% of European consumers now feel confident about buying items online. “The changes aren’t just about volume. Not only are we buying more online, we’re also buying in new ways. More than two in five (43 percent) of Europeans said they signed up to a new shopping website they hadn’t used before lockdown,” he explains. 

“There has been a seismic shift in the way consumers are shopping and we’ve been using our expertise to support businesses of all sizes with the rapid growth of e-commerce so they can survive and thrive through this uncertain time,” maintains Stefano Rossi, packaging CEO at DS Smith.

E-commerce boom
Incessant growth in online retail channels and the rising demand for corrugated boards are taking e-commerce packaging into a brave new world. Innova Market Insights crowned “Packing an e-Punch” as its third packaging trend for 2020.

In other DS Smith packaging delivery news, the company now offers Hanhaa’s ParceLive packaging tracking device in shipments. The technology provides traceable parcel delivery satisfaction to end-receivers with a postcard-size tracker.

In September, DS Smith partnered with Laithwaite’s Wine, a UK-based online wine purchasing platform, to develop an e-commerce pack protecting glass bottles from the jolts and impacts of the courier delivery network. 

“Laithwaite’s Wine was one of our first customers to be awarded our Closed-Loop Certification. Together, we demonstrated a fully auditable and traceable closed-loop model for their cardboard arriving at their distribution center,” concludes Berkhout.

By Anni Schleicher

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