Packaging specialist Paccor has joined Circopack, a packaging project initiated by Pack4Food – a consortium of companies active in the food and packaging industry and their suppliers working in collaboration with Flanders’ FOOD, SensNet and a number of research institutions to promote the development of sustainable packaging solutions.
The project, which kicked off last year in April and will run for three years, aims to develop a scientifically underpinned scan for sustainable material maintenance. With the help of the scan, players across the food supply chain will be able to assess and optimise their packaging policies and to bring these into alignment with the principles of the circular economy while maintaining full packaging functionality and safety. It will also provide the industry with proven data for customers, to back up the packaging choices being made.
“The research project is about optimisation of packaging solutions through environmental impact assessments, taking into consideration the overall food packaging chain, including the food filling process, food waste and end of life,” said Andreas Schuette, CEO of Paccor.
“The food products included in the project were chosen in a way that results could be easily extrapolated to other food types, making the validity of the findings applicable to a larger scale. We want to address consumers’ concerns about plastics with science-based facts.”
The project will also lead to a closer collaboration between packaging producers, food producers, waste packaging processors and, ultimately, consumers. As a result, more efficient packaging innovations will be developed, offering improved, more sustainable product-packaging combination and better enabling design for recyclability.