Weekly Roundup: Braskem joins Nextloopp, Mondi reveals strong financial results

04 Mar 2022 --- In packaging news this week, Braskem became the latest participant in Nextek’s Nextloopp project to create food-grade recycled polypropylene. Meanwhile, Mondi reported a strong financial performance in its full-year 2021 results, while Berry Global announced that 86% of its fast-moving consumer products are now reusable, recyclable or compostable.

In brief: Circular plastics economy
Braskem became the 40th participant to join Nextek’s groundbreaking project Nextloopp to create food-grade recycled polypropylene (PP) from post-consumer packaging waste. This award-winning project, launched in October 2020, recently revealed “outstanding results” for its innovative tracer-based sorting trials. Nextloopp uses a combination of cutting-edge technologies to first separate food-grade PP from other materials and then decontaminates the polymer to ensure compliance with food-grade standards in the UK, EU and the US.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), reportedly the world’s largest producer of recycled PET for beverage bottles, completed a deal for an 85% equity stake in Czech Republic-based PET plastic recycler UCY Polymers (UCY). As a result of the investment, IVL will recycle about 1.12 billion additional post-consumer PET plastic bottles in the Czech Republic every year by 2025, increasing the total bottles recycled by UCY across the Czech Republic, Germany and Central Europe to 1.6 billion bottles per year.Antalis’ Eurobox.

In brief: Annual performances
Mondi published its full-year 2021 results, reporting a strong financial performance. Andrew King, Mondi’s CEO, commented: “Mondi delivered strongly in 2021, and we see good opportunities to accelerate growth in [environmentally] sustainable packaging. Underlying EBITDA of €1,503 million (US$1,241 million) was up 11% and ROCE up at 16.9%. We grew our packaging businesses and saw a recovery in uncoated fine paper markets. Our vertical integration, the agility of our operations and collaboration with our customers, ensured we met surging demand at a time when supply chains were under pressure around the world. We implemented price increases across all our businesses and, against a backdrop of rising commodity input costs, we exhibited good cost control.”

Berry Global launched its 2021 Impact Report, delivering a comprehensive and transparent assessment of its progress in meeting its Environmental, Social, and Governance targets. In the Impact Report, the company announced that 86% of its fast-moving consumer products are now reusable, recyclable or compostable, on target for achieving 100 percent by 2025. It also reported increases in the use of circular plastics and product lightweighting.

In brief: Pulp for packaging
Solenis joined PulPac’s Dry Molded Fiber network, providing specialty chemicals for paper packaging for barrier coating solutions. “I believe we are uniquely positioned to provide safe and [environmentally] sustainable barrier solutions designed for circularity to the dry molded fiber converters that lead the way and set new standards for fiber-based packaging,” said Daniel Palrén, business development manager at Solenis. “Fiber-based products coated with these barrier coatings typically are repulpable, recyclable, compostable and biodegradable, thereby offering packaging producers a way to improve their [environmental] sustainability credentials with brand owners, retailers and consumers.”Airnov Healthcare Packaging’s Dricard.

BillerudKorsnäs and the Norwegian forest owner group Viken Skog formed a joint venture to explore the possibilities of working together to establish the production of bleached chemi-thermomechanical pulp at Viken Skog’s Follum mill in Hønefoss, Norway. The partners plan to initiate a feasibility study about future pulp production at Follum, which will be completed during the first half of 2023. The intention is to establish a state-of-the-art production line for bleached chemi-thermomechanical pulp at the Follum mill with a capacity assumption of up to 200 kt/a. The Follum mill already has much of the infrastructure needed to establish such a production line. It is located in an area with competitive wood supply and good transports to BillerudKorsnäs’ board mills.

In brief: new products
Antalis Packaging extended its range of e-commerce solutions to include efficient, easy-to-use and environmentally sustainable packaging options. With the UK’s e-commerce industry continuing to grow, sourcing packaging materials that meet the three-fold requirements of efficiency, ease-of-use and environmental sustainability is vital for business success and reputation, the company said. It has added Colompac Euroboxes, E-commerce postal boxes and Paper mailing bags to its offering.

Airnov Healthcare Packaging, a leader in controlled atmosphere packaging, unveiled a more environmentally sustainable version of its Dricard products. Dricard is a flat moisture absorber comprised of calcium chloride desiccant laminated between film layers. As with desiccant packets, Dricard is designed to maintain a dry package environment to keep nutraceuticals, foods and diagnostics safe from the damaging effects of moisture. The new solution provides twice the capacity in the same size card, uses less plastic and is printed with high-contrast blue ink on a white background, meaning it requires 80% less ink to produce.Molson Coors’ revamped PET bottle design.

GEA expanded its valve portfolio with the GEA Aseptomag LV leakage valve. The mixproof double-seat valve is designed for F&B and pharma manufacturers, maintaining high safety standards in UltraClean process lines. Typical examples are products with an extended shelf life such as soft drinks, fruit juices and milk-based and lactic acid fermented products, along with plant-based alternatives sold chilled by retailers. Focusing on equipment flexibility, the design features mitigate the risk of contamination in this hygiene class. In addition, products become more durable – with fewer preservatives.

In brief: Reusable packaging
IFCO, a leading provider of reusable packaging containers (RPC) for fresh grocery products, acquired the RPC pooling services business of Sanko Lease via its wholly-owned subsidiary IFCO Japan. The acquired business will be transferred to IFCO Japan and succeeded by IFCO Oricon Co., which will start operations effective March 1, 2022. Through the acquisition, IFCO Japan will significantly increase its pooling asset base and service center network and reportedly become the largest RPC pooling provider in the fresh grocery supply chain in the Japanese market.

In brief: Revamped bottle design
Molson Coors revamped its PET bottle design for local beer brands in Bulgaria. Kamenitza, Burgasko and Astika now sport a new eye-catching look. Competek engineers developed the new packaging, designing one shape for 1 L, 2 L and 2,3 L formats, differentiated with shelf-enriching decorations on the bottle’s body.

By Joshua Poole