Pioneer Talk | What is the top priority in solving packaging waste in the food and beverage industry?

Pioneer Talk | What is the top priority in solving packaging waste in the food and beverage industry?

Recently, Mr. Hong Gang, co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of Fenmei Packaging, accepted an exclusive interview with Makeable's "Pioneer Talk" column, sharing Fenmei's innovations and attempts in the field of beverage packaging, as well as Mr. Hong Gang's unique insights on LCA's various steps in the sustainable transformation of food and beverage packaging.

The following content is reproduced from Makeable Sustainable Innovation Observation and has detailed adjustments:

Guests of this issue

We have invited Mr. Hong Gang, co-founder of Fanmei Packaging and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Hong Gang is an entrepreneur who was first in China to contact, advocate and practice the concept of environmentalism. He attaches importance to the environmental impact of the entire value chain and has worked as a leading international packaging provider for 14 years.

In 2003, Mr. Hong Gang founded Fenmei Packaging Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fenmei"), combining environmentalist concepts with the management and innovation of packaging waste. Under his leadership, Fonmei has become a pioneer in high-quality products, cross-cultural operations, cross-border innovation and sustainable development of Chinese local enterprises. Its service network covers more than 50 countries and is the world's third largest comprehensive solution supplier of sterile packaging solutions for liquid food, providing liquid dairy products and non-carbonate soft drink manufacturers with cost-effective packaging materials, filling machines and spare parts services.

Views of this issue

  • The establishment of consumer environmental awareness needs to be achieved through professionals and professional language

  • Good environmentally friendly packaging for food and beverages is a combination of use value and environmental value

  • Cross-border innovation and resource sharing or the starting point of packaging cycle

01

Consistent "environmentalism"

Mr. Hong Gang is a firm and pragmatic actor and advocate. His early overseas experience has deeply inspired him by environmentalism and has a full understanding of the importance of environmental protection and sustainable development to human society. He has always used his own actions to promote China's environmental protection cause. Mr. Hong Gang began to pay attention to the environmental impact of the entire value chain very early. He believes that "vertical thinking" under the leadership of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) concept is the top priority in solving packaging waste in the food and beverage industry.

LCA is a technology and method for evaluating the environmental impact of a product or service throughout its life cycle. LCA not only focuses on the environmental impact of a product or service in use, but also on the resource consumption and pollutant emissions involved in the entire process from raw materials to waste treatment. For packaging manufacturers, from the beginning of packaging design, they need to consider the comprehensive environmental impacts such as potential energy consumption and emissions of the entire life cycle of the packaging, and balance the cost and technical feasibility, and then find the best solution.

LCA application in the development process of Fenmei aluminum-free bags

In order to avoid the use of aluminum foil in composite packaging to increase the complexity and high energy consumption of the packaging recycling and dismantling process, and not affect the strength and sealing of the packaging, Fenmei developed a paper-based sterile packaging Fenmei aluminum-free bag with a 7-layer composite structure. Replacing the aluminum foil layer used in ordinary sterile bags with high-performance polymer barrier materials to achieve dual guarantees for product quality and safety, while greatly reducing the consumption of resources and energy and the impact on the environment.

Fenmi's LCA analysis shows that compared with traditional sterile cartons, aluminum-free bags can reduce carbon emissions by about 40%, water consumption by about 30%, and non-renewable energy consumption by about 20% throughout the life cycle.

In the process of managing Fumei, Mr. Hong Gang was committed to and applied the concepts and means of life cycle assessment to the management and innovation of packaging waste, and contributed to China's environmental improvement and resource conservation. He not only cares about the products and services of his company, but also the awareness and behavior of consumers, government and society.

Mr. Hong’s opinion

"I hope to convey this very scientific environmental concept and means through professionals and professional language, rather than doing fancy things."

02 LCA is the bridge for communicating emotions, environmental protection and rational environmental protection

Mr. Hong Gang said that many consumers lack understanding of the company's decision-making process and the real situation of product production lines, and have a bias in their understanding of environmentally friendly packaging. Instead, they may purchase some products that seem to be environmentally friendly material packaging but actually have a more significant negative impact on the environment due to their simple emotional pursuit of environmentally friendly products. This may lead to the economic interests of packaging providers who are truly investing in the research and development and production of environmentally friendly products. To avoid this, companies need to improve consumers' understanding of the entire life cycle concept of products through actions, thereby improving consumers' ability to consume scientifically in environmentally friendly packaged food and beverages and accountability for enterprises, and opening up the market for truly sustainable products.

"Enterprises need to consider LCA in all aspects of packaging design, production, distribution and consumption, and through effective communication and education, they can convey the concept of green packaging, help consumers understand and cooperate, and jointly achieve the goal of environmental protection."

Excellent packaging products themselves are the best communication channel between packaging providers and consumers. A good food and beverage packaging should achieve a balance between multiple factors such as functionality, aesthetics, sustainability and price to meet consumer usage needs and optimize user experience. These factors often influence each other, bringing new challenges to food and beverage packaging providers. For example, consumers are unwilling to bear the green premium of sustainable packaging; for example, glass bottles are packaged by a single material, which are more likely to separate impurities than other composite materials, but are prone to breakage and have a high weight, and have high transportation costs. In this case, enterprises need to pay attention to technological innovation in packaging materials and design, select the most suitable packaging materials and solutions based on the entire value chain such as products, customer groups, as well as raw materials, transportation, sales, and post-use disposal, and constantly pursue environmentally friendly packaging products with higher "universality" and "universality", so that environmental protection can penetrate into the details of consumers' use and handling of food and beverage packaging.

Fenmei®Addition and subtraction packages to meet complex challenges with innovation

In order to reduce environmental pollution and ensure the quality and safety of drinking water, Fenmei has developed an innovative sterile paper-based packaging for the drinking water market - Fenmei Addition and Subtraction Package®.

Fonmei Addition and Subtraction Pack® is a paper-based packaging, with 75% of the materials being FSCTM certified cardboard, and it uses easy-to-pull stickers to replace traditional plastic covers to change consumers' usage experience and usage habits. In addition, the packaging optimizes the material structure and thickness, achieving a significant reduction in plastic usage and carbon emissions. According to LCA analysis conducted by Fonmei, compared with traditional sterile packages, the addition and subtraction packages can reduce plastic usage by about 86%, about 60%, and about 50% of non-renewable energy consumption throughout the life cycle. This package has been successfully applied to Elix Water Carton Water.

03 Previous and back-end innovations to achieve "same frequency resonance"

Food and beverage packaging recycling is not only the responsibility of enterprises, but also requires the participation of consumers and the whole society. Enterprises at the front end of the value chain need to optimize packaging design from the source, while consumers need to improve the efficiency of packaging waste treatment for enterprises at the back end of the value chain, thereby improving the social resource recycling rate in all aspects.

Mr. Hong’s opinion

"We have joined the strategic alliance of technological innovation in resource mandatory recycling industry and become a board member. We hope to join forces with associations, packaging companies, packaging recycling companies, research institutions and other forces to establish a beverage paper-based composite packaging recycling industry chain."

However, China's food and beverage packaging collection is mainly concentrated in the community. Community garbage classification emphasizes residents' participation and conscious implementation, and residents need to pre-classify within the family, which invisibly raises the threshold for consumers to participate in packaging recycling. At the same time, the number of households covered by the community is large, and the personal habits of residents are very different; the community is diverse, the waste is easily "polluted", and the difficulty of supervision is high, which makes consumers and community managers unable to participate well in the packaging recycling process.

Changes in consumer behavior are inseparable from supporting infrastructure that simplifies the classification and delivery process of food and beverage packaging after use. To solve this difficulty, introducing more participants may make it possible to build a community packaging recycling network.

As food and beverage brands are paying more and more attention to packaging recycling, the industry can carry out cross-border innovation and resource sharing, and make the types of waste packaging such as convenience stores, schools and some beverage stores relatively single. The development of places where consumers are concentrated in contact with food and beverage packaging is the "first battlefield" for enterprises to carry out small-scale packaging recycling pilot projects. Promote consumers' classified behavior through certain incentives. At the same time, in order to simplify the recycling and incentive process, innovation in digital and intelligent recycling sorting technology is likely to become an important breakthrough.

ACTION TIPS

  • The key to establishing consumer environmental awareness is to enable consumers to have the concept of LCA and cultivate consumers' "vertical thinking" ability.

  • Packaging providers can balance compliance, functionality, aesthetics, sustainability and price through technological innovation in packaging materials and design, and use this as a channel to change consumer behavior.

  • Front and back-end enterprises in the value chain of the food and beverage industry need to build a more efficient packaging circulation system through cross-border innovation and resource sharing, and work together to reduce packaging waste.

About Pioneer Talk

Focusing on the corporate perspective and identifying innovation opportunities, Makeable has set up the "Pioneer Talk" column to invite pioneering figures in large companies to share in-depth insights and prospects on the industry's sustainable development and innovation trends.

This article is reproduced from Makeable Sustainable Observation. Thanks to the original staff:

Interview/Mingyan, Yanjing

Written by Chen Ye, Yile

Typesetting/Lang Shan, Yile