Krehalon’s recent KreLid™ Mono project, alongside the ground-breaking work of other recognised Co-op suppliers, will be part of Co-op’s pitch for the 2018 IGD Sustainable Futures Award.
Rob Thompson, Packaging Technologist for the Co-op, shared the team’s excitement via Twitter in light of the upcoming Awards on 2nd October 2018.
Co-op showcased to the judging panel the great recyclability work they’ve done in close collaboration with suppliers, amongst which was Krehalon.
The statistics presented by Co-op showed how Krehalon’s KreLid™ Mono product helped the retailer take out 163 tonnes per annum of hard-to-recycle plastic. Great results that show clear signs of change and real opportunity for further development in improving packaging recyclability.
‘Action on Plastics’ Webinar
Earlier this year, Co-op launched their revised recyclability ambition via the ‘Action on Plastics’ supplier webinar which gathered nearly 200 attendees.
“This is about us having a long pedigree on environmental action and about suppliers being essential to us being able to deliver on our ambitions, past and future.” – commented Iain Ferguson, Environment Manager at the Co-op, named by the Grocer as one of the top 10 influencers in the grocery retail world.
During the webinar, Lisa Hand, Head of Supply Chain at Dunbia Group, presented their award-winning work in collaboration with Krehalon and shared the story on how Krehalon helped them become first-to-market a mono-polymer PET thermoformed pack.
Lisa explained the difficulties faced by Dunbia in finding a viable solution:
“This project was a huge challenge for us because historically there was no viable solution for mono polymer thermoformed PET plastics for packing mince.
We tried a number of different solutions, but we had problems with seal integrity, mainly due to contamination that you would find with any high-speed packing on protein.
We had leakers, burst packs, there was loss of product.
In some cases, initially the seal would work, but it didn’t maintain its integrity through the supply chain due to temperature and handling challenges.
To find a solution, we undertook quite a long trialling period that took us over 18 months. We had potential solutions from 9 suppliers and ended up with 24 products – a result from countless combinations between different base and top materials.
But after the course of these 18 months, we found a solution in working with Krehalon. Product passed all supply chain trials and was rolled out successfully in 2017 – a project 100% aligned to Co-op’s ambition for easy to recycle packaging.”
Krehalon continues to work closely with partners and customers on improving sustainability and recyclability of our products. We believe that power of collaboration will accelerate the delivery of new, more circular approaches to packaging.
