In some African countries milk is packaged in bags. The bags go into a jug and into the fridge. Cut off the corner of the bag and the milk can be poured via the jug. "It's their equivalent of the milk bottle, if you like," says Chris Bolton, sales and operations director at PFM Packaging Machinery.
Now, PFM has been selling the technology for milk-in-a-bag for a dozen or more years, but it has never sold a machine in the UK. The convenience of milk bottles and milk cartons has always won over bags, suggests Bolton.
"But the other day we got our first enquiry in years from the UK. Indirectly, I think it is probably from a supermarket. So I am wondering, are green issues starting to take over from convenience?"
At the moment, says Bolton, food packaging equipment makers face a dilemma. On the one hand there is a strong push by retailers for more convenience in packaging ? easy open, reclosable, shelf-ready packs. On the other hand, he says, there is growing pressure for packaging to be greener ? thinner films, lower pack weights, biodegradable films. In other words, less packaging. And on top of that there is the constant push from retailers to reduce pack prices.
Look at what Tesco is doing, for example. Last June, at a packaging forum organised by Sealed Air Cryovac, Tesco declared that one of its key priorities as a retailer was to reduce packaging weight. The supermarket said it was achieving a 5% reduction in pack weight that year (2007) and that it was looking for a 25% reduction in five years' time.
"There is pressure on us to produce very convenient, easy-open, innovative packs, but using less packaging," says Bolton. "And sometimes the two just don't go together. If you are putting something like zips into packs, for example, you are making the packs easier to reclose, more convenient. But you are not making them any greener."
Cook-in packaging
An example is cook-in packaging. It might look like the ideal green and convenient packaging. But it throws up dilemmas of its own. The idea of packing, shipping, retailing, and cooking a product in the same pack appeals to the green aim of reducing the amount of packaging in the food chain. Cook-in packaging is convenient, too - no handling of the food and reduced cooking and cleaning times.
The frozen pizza is a prime example. There is no reason, says Bolton, why it has to be shrunk-wrapped and put in a cardboard carton and then put on the shelf. Why not just overwrap it with a printed laminate film and do away with the carton, he says.
However, to make cook-in packing work, new high-tech ovenable packaging materials have had to be developed that remain cool to the touch. Absorbent materials often need to be used to remove fat and liquid released during cooking. And in many cases the lidding will need to incorporate a vent or valve system to relieve internal steam pressure. Not exactly the eco-warrior's idea of minimalist packaging, then.
Also, assuming it is possible, and assuming that the consumer will put up with it, achieving the three Rs of green packaging - reduce, re-use, recycle - will take a long time. Not all packaging systems are immediately suitable for light-weight, thin-gauge or compostable materials. And achieving across-the-board pack weight reductions for all food products is likely to take many years.
Nevertheless, that milk-in-a-bag enquiry could be a pointer to the future for packaging, says Bolton. However, at the moment he believes that there's a sort of balance or truce in the packaging industry between eco-friendliness and convenience. No-one seems sure, he says, how far retailers will be willing to go in sacrificing their customers' convenience in order to be seen to be greener.
Flexibility - the real issue
So, let us leave the green-versus-convenience debate to the marketing departments to sort out, and turn instead to the real issue with packaging - flexibility. The fact is that food processors still have orders to meet and product to get out the factory door. But the days have long gone when an order from a supermarket would justify investment in a packaging line dedicated to just one or two products.
Today, says Neil Ashton, sales manager at tray sealing machinery supplier Packaging Automation, a food processor can be running batch sizes as small as 100 trays as its customers chop and change orders during the day. "They can be running 15, possibly 20 sets of tools a day on one machine." And that means one thing: his customers want flexibility ? plus, of course, reliability, ease-of-use and reduced machine downtime.
"Gone are the days when they would get a commitment from a retailer so they could invest in machinery and amortise it over a period and work out their pay-back." They can't do that any more, he says, because if they invest in a dedicated machine and then their customer pulls the order for that product or changes its pack specifications too much, then they have nothing else to put down that line.
"What processors look for now is flexibility so that if the product is de-listed or it isn't successful, they can retool the machine to heat seal a different type of product and so justify the spend on that machine."
That is why, says Ashton, there was a movement a few years ago back to flow wrapping of trays. "You didn't have to invest in a whole set of different tools. The machines would accommodate different size trays at the push of a button." Flow wrappers were ideal, he says, because food producers could pack different sizes and shapes of trays and packs without having to invest further in the machine.
The trouble was, retailers didn't like the quality of the packs, says Ashton. "They said: 'We want tray sealing, or we'll go elsewhere'. So today our customers have to invest in new tooling every time they are asked to do a different tray. They want a machine that is flexible so that if a product dies in three or six months they can retool it and continue to use the machine."
But flexibility comes with its own headaches, he says. "Once you start adding flexibility to a machine you start adding to its downtime - not just the downtime to change the tools, but downtime where machines have not been set up correctly because of poor training."
And here is yet another dilemma. With increased flexibility there comes increased complexity. "What packaging machinery suppliers are having to do is not only make their machines more flexible, but make them more simple to operate so that operators can understand the machine with very little training," suggests Ashton.
"Years ago an engineer would change the tooling. Now operators are expected to do it, often with very little training." So Packaging Automation will even colour code tooling to make is easier for operators to get it right. 'Oh, I see, red top tool, red base tool, red transfer arm. Off we go.'
"We are reducing all the time the amount of things that an operator can lose, break, or has to do in order to make it easier to change tools over," says Ashton.
Yet despite the efforts of packaging machinery suppliers to make their systems as flexible and as simple to use as possible, they face yet one more dilemma. Poor maintenance.
At many food processors the struggle to maintain margins in the face of the constant pressure from their customers to drive down costs means that maintenance tends to come bottom of their list of priorities.
Maintenance could be better
In many cases, says Mike Gillard, operations manager at Sealed Air Cryovac, in-house maintenance of machines could be a lot better. "What we find with some companies is that the maintenance of plant is, how shall we say, not the best it could be because of the drive on their own margins."
It's often a case of 'My customers don't pay me enough for their products, therefore I can't afford to maintain my machines. Then they complain when the product is not there. What can I do?' says Gillard.
Sealed Air Cryovac is continually striving to supply machines that are better and more reliable in every way, he says. But sometimes the most efficient way for a machine is to run it a bit slower than its top speed. "It is a question of looking at the whole system. Do the machines have to be run at the maximum speeds they are capable of? Or are they more efficient running a bit slower? In many cases, if you run machines slower they are more reliable."
Dilemmas. Dilemmas. But there could be a positive outcome to this green versus convenience drama, suggests Bolton at PFM Packaging Machinery. "If the pressure to be more green does win, then that will simplify packaging greatly." And that will be good for the food producer and good for the packaging machinery maker.
Key Contacts
- Aetna UK 01234 825050
*Packaging Automation 01565 755000 *PFM Packaging 0113 239 3401 *Schubert 01676 525825 *Sealed Air Cryovac 01480 224000