The first phase of the Courtauld Commitment (Courtauld 1) saw retailers and brandowners signing up to reduce packaging weights. Courtauld 2 has seen a greater emphasis on wider sustainability questions, including reduced food waste.
But in the meantime says packaging manager at Campden BRI, Alan Campbell too many specifications have been radically revised without having the proper testing to back them up. "People tended to have reasonable-strength on-shelf packaging, so they might have got away with a lower-strength outer," he said. "But then, many opted to make their primary packaging lighter, with thinner materials."
He added: "There may be retailer pressures encouraging brandowners to go down a particular route. But it may only be the week before launch that the brandowner discovers that a particular packaging combination doesn't work. It is often left to the likes of Campden to explain why that is."
Campbell does not believe these problems arise out of a lack of technical expertise. "It may be that those specialists are more mobile, and don't stay in one particular business for long. We've seen examples of a manufacturer coming back three or four times over a decade with the same problem. Every time, the technical manager changed and the experience of preventing or solving the problem had been lost."
In part, he said, issues have developed out of customer pressure for the rapid introduction of new formats, not necessarily backed up by the required technical insights. "This might mean substituting paperboard for plastics, or using the same modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), with the same gas, for two very different products," he said.