Put chilled food packaging to the carbon test

The Chilled Food Association (CFA) has called for an authoritative carbon footprint analysis comparing returnable transit packaging (RTP) with corrugated board.

This comes as a leading supplier of plastic RTP containers highlights the income they can generate for retailers. Danilo Oliynik, commercial director for Linpac Allibert in the UK says: “I can think of one retailer who’s seeing an eight-digit revenue stream from RTP rental, and it’s not the largest in the UK.”

This is confirmed by other industry sources which cite revenue of at least £10M for one unnamed retailer. Rental rates of around 70p a day mean that RTP trays can recoup costs and start to generate revenue after just three trips.

Kaarin Goodburn, secretary general of the CFA, says: “We would like to see some form of carbon-based lifecycle analysis carried out.” Here, she sees the Carbon Trust’s new PAS 2050 specification as an opportunity to produce reliable data.

Retailers corralled the chilled foods sector into RTP over 10 years ago. At the time, suppliers shouldered costs spanning new packing and washing systems, new storage space and administration, as well as replacement and rental.

The Confederation of Paper Industries claims that corrugated board in the retail chain is achieving 84% recycling rates. But positive assumptions about RTP have been reinforced by the EU’s waste hierarchy, which still ranks reduction and reuse above recycling.