Partnerships in the packaging industry

Partnerships in the packaging industry are currently very sought-after. Many businesses have realised that they can increase their power for innovation and become better able to meet any challenges if they partner up with others. And so, cooperations bring together know-how, resources and technologies, increase the flexibility of all involved and offer an advantage over the competition. But those active in the packaging industry also profit from establishing strategic partnerships with institutes of higher education and universities, or with different industry initiatives. Here are some current examples.

What cooperation between business and science can look like, is showed by corrugated card board manufacturer Klingele. Together with business information scientists and the graduate school GSaME at Stuttgart university, the company is currently developing an AI-based platform for knowledge-based service consulting, which is supposed to lead the corrugated card board industrial company into the digital future. Already this year, the first prototype is supposed to be realised. The concept envisions a digital assistant supported by artificial intelligence, which for example uses focused, special knowledge to help put together a carbon footprint. The project was recently presented at an international IT science conference. “This is an important recognition of our shared research work. And this is what makes such a project so rewarding: We are accompanying an industrial company which has been successful for over a hundred years with physical products into the age of AI. I am pleased that Klingele is becoming open to these topics and is actively participating” says Dr Dimitri Petrik, head of the group of young academics at the graduate school GSaME.

Taking stock of one’s own material by-flows and to think of how these may be put to use, is one way to drive forward the circular economy and save resources. Metsä Group, for example, has set itself the goal of reusing all byproducts and waste from production, until 2030. This would be impossible without partners. One of these is the Finnish company Soilfood, which uses the fibre sludge from the Metsä board works to produce fibre-based soil enhancers for agriculture. Veolia, another partner, is currently planning to build a plant to refine raw biomethanol, a byproduct from the pulping process which was previously burned to produce energy. In the future, it is supposed to be used as a biofuel for vehicles or as a raw material for the chemical industry. Another partner is the start-up Woodio, which screens chips of birch wood – another byproduct of the paper and forest-industry company – to gain the raw material for producing designer hand wash basins. The finished product also scores on sustainability checks: The carbon footprint is around 80 percent smaller than for a ceramic basin, and the light weight material also means fewer emissions during logistics.

Byproducts are also the focus of paper and packaging producer Mondi. A new coating solution is currently under development together with the Hamburg circular bioeconomy start-up Traceless, which is based on byproducts from agriculture and is supposed to replace conventional plastic coatings. The granulate for the coating is being produced by Traceless in a pilot system, and applied to kraft paper in the Mondi research and development centre, in order to then further test the coated paper in the company’s labs. At a later date, production is supposed to be carried out at an industrial scale in a dedicated plant in Hamburg.

Test series have already proven that the kraft paper coated with Traceless is resistant to water, oxygen and grease and can easily be printed on. However, the goal is also to develop a solution which can be used in the already existing recycling streams within Europe. Currently, the solution is undergoing fine adjustment in order to prepare it for a variety of packaging applications across a broad range of final markets, for example for e-commerce, frozen goods, greasy and non-greasy foods.

The web-based Sustainable Packaging Optimization Tool (SPOT) by PreZero, the environment division of the Schwarz group, and by software provider Packaging Cockpit, allows producers and distributors of packaging to design their range of products in a way that is easier to keep circulating. In order to assess recyclability, the tool takes into account not only the material and design of the packaging, but also the recycling infrastructure in each country of the EU. This makes differences in the ability of packagings to be recycled visible from country to country: The tool is available free of charge and lists each carbon footprint as well as the costs, including plastic taxes, licensing fees and littering fonds for each country, which makes a comparison at the European level possible. Experts from both companies also offer additional consulting services, which cover the entire added value creation of a packaging – from product design to production and use up to re-use of the materials for new products.

The pharmaceutical company Bayer has entered into a strategic cooperation with the fibre cast experts at Papacks, in order to develop fibre-based types of packaging as an alternative to conventional plastic packaging for some of its consumer health products, among them brands like Aspirin, Bepanthen and Claritin. The cooperation aims to produce biodegradable pulp-based packaging from new fibres which utilise the pulp form technology by Papacks. This technology utilises materials from renewable sources and a plant-based coating.

The plastic packaging producer Schoeller Allibert, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and the recycling company Healix together have been working on a sustainable multiple use of packaging for bottles, which will first be marketed in the Netherlands. The deal is about the iconic red Coca-Cola bottle crates, which are now made of 97 percent recycled plastic, which consists of old red crates and plastics which are usually difficult to recycle – in this case, old tulip nets which Healix recycles. A new technology by Schoeller Allibert provides the brand’s typical red colour. “Part of the recycled plastic used for the crates doesn’t come exclusively from Coca-Cola crates. Nevertheless, we were able to make sure that the typical Coca-Cola red will remain recognisable. The way we manage this is through a clever ‘whirling effect’ in the colour”, says Julie De Bruyckere, Key Account Manager at Schoeller Allibert. In the Netherlands in this year alone there are plans for the successive introduction of 150,000 crates made of recycled plastics.

No less than four companies, one designer and a pizza producer from South Tyrol banded together for the joint project EcoFlexPack. The result is a sustainable, flexible paper packaging solution for frozen pizza which required significantly less material and consumes up to 80 percent less CO₂ than conventional packaging for frozen pizza which consists of cardboard and an inner plastic wrapping. Koehler Paper contributes its special, recyclable barrier paper NexPlus Seal Pure MOB to the joint project. This packaging paper can be sealed using heat, acts as a barrier to grease, mineral oil and oxygen, and can be recycled within the paper stream. At the Weiss group, the barrier paper was printed using a rotary offset Lithoman IV manroland Gross printing press. A sustainable solution, as the plates used for rotary offset printing can be produced quickly and at low cost, and can be recycled. The specially formulated low migration inks produced by Hubergroup for printing on food packaging are also sustainable. The packaging was designed by Friederike Dietz, and the packed product is South Tyrol’s first handmade frozen pizza by Pizza A Mano from the Pustertal valley.

Circular economy services provider Interzero and the packaging company Coveris have started a recycling partnership: The plastic material collected and sorted by Interzero is supposed to be soon processed in the ReCover plants run by Coveris, using mechanical recycling to produce high-quality recyclates. The granules are then used in the packaging foils made by Coveris. 

And Leonhard Kurz, together with printing press manufacturer Heidelberg, has started a project for in-line finishing of packaging, which also includes a recycling programme for the transfer materials used. In this inline process, a Speedmaster printing press by Heidelberg gives foldable boxes their finishing, the Kurz cold-transfer finishing KPS slim 2.0, which is produced on a transfer material which is 50 percent thinner (6 μm compared to 12 μm). During this process, the transfer material is peeled off and, owing to the Kurz proprietary refund and recycling system for PET transfer materials, Recosys, can be processed by Kurz in their recycling plant.