Fachpack 2018: Südpack's R&D Manager on “translating the language of sustainability into packaging”

28 Sep 2018 --- Germanys new Packaging Act – set to become active in 2019 – places a stricter reporting regime for packaging producers and will increase recycling rates for plastic packaging to 63 percent, with the quota being raised to 90 percent by 2022. The imminent arrival of Act is driving plastic manufactures to translate sustainability into packaging solutions. PackagingInsights spoke to Matthias Schrägle, R&D Manager at Südpack, provider of packaging solutions for food products, on the floor of FachPack 2018.

“Not only the meat and dairy industry are demanding sustainable packaging – it is coming from several different industries. This makes sustainability a mega-trend facing our industry.”

In order to answer this mega-trend, Schrägle outlines the three-pillared approach that Südpack’s R&D department has employed: Reduce, recycle and renewable.

Reduce
“We want to have an answer to reduce plastic material. The aim is here, what you do not produce you do not have to recycle,” says Schrägle.

Südpack's answer here is Veraplex. This ultra-thin product “allows you to downgauge material by up to a 100 percent. It uses less material, but has the same performance levels, including peelability.”

Recycling
The second pillar Schrägle illustrates is recyclability. Here, Südpack’s R&D department has made previously unrecyclable, multilayered packaging, recyclable. 

“We tried to answer with solutions without polyester and polyimide. This we can do with our existing products today. It’s in the development phase, but we are very confident that we will have a full solution within a year if a customer wants to swap from the current packaging to recyclable options,” he explains.

“If you want to be recyclable in the current systems in Germany, this is our answer,” he adds.

Renewable sources
Schrägle explains that Südpack closely tracks renewable sources on the market:

“For renewable, the standard material would be the right polylactic acid, for example. We are also looking at biobased PE too. We want them all on our radar. We research these defined by the needs of the customers.”

“We have several materials on an ongoing screening process. Every new material on the market from renewable sources, we check them and put them in our lab extruder to measure everything – we can do our own application testing in-house.”

Sudpack’s ability to test-drive the materials in-house 
Schrägle explains that developing materials to be more sustainable essentially means you are dealing with a new material. In this way, a significant degree of testing must be conducted on the materials. Südpack offers the in-house capabilities to do so.

“We have to test these packaging at the consumer levels. Meaning, we test shelf life and best before dates for example, as well as barriers.”

“At Südpack we have the big advantage in the development department as we have our own Multivac lines and machines – flow-wrappers for example. This means we can do all these tests in advance, not only at our customer’s base. We can prepare ourselves. We are very well equipped,” he adds.

Addressing sustainability as the megatrend continues?
Schrägle highlights the need for rapid development in the coming two years around sustainability, as well as the necessity of working with customers on educating them around the changes that are coming.

“We have to teach our customers regarding alternative materials. We need to support them strongly with our new applications. We cannot just send new materials; you need to support companies too and guide them with our application engineering team. These materials may perform slightly differently, so in the partner company you need to work with technicians as well as purchasing teams as the pricing situation may be different,” he says.

The inclusion of renewable materials in a company’s line also warrants extra attention: “You need to speak with the board of the company to see if the renewable source fits in with their philosophy. Some materials come from sources that could be used for food – sugar cane for example. Taking materials that could be harvested for food, but using them for packaging could offend their philosophy and company ethos.”

Essentially, it must be asked, “What is sustainability to them?” Increasingly, Südpack is translating visions into packaging for a company, or, as Schrägle concludes: “We are translating sustainability into packaging.”

By Laxmi Haigh