Monthly Archives: December 2015

Amazon customers criticise excessive packaging

Amazon is facing criticism on social media with stories of excessive packaging, during the festive period.

Consumers vented their frustrations at what they saw as unnecessarily over-sized packaging for numerous items.

One Twitter user showed a huge cardboard box packaging a packet of small camera lens protector rings.

She tweeted: “What an incredibly wasteful way of packaging a tiny unbreakable item.”

Amazon did not avoid the topic, with a customer service advisor tweeting back: “I’ll be happy to pass this picture along to our Shipping Department for you.”

One customer sent an image of a small packet wrapped up in brown paper and an over sized cardboard box, while another posted a picture of a keyboard in a pack that appeared considerably larger than required.

Another picture showed a toy the size of a long pencil sent in a far longer cardboard box – which certainly appeared excessive.

This excessive packaging goes against the pledge Amazon made in 2008 when it promised to slash the amount of packaging it used.

At A&A Packaging we have seen similar cases when the staff have ordered products from amazon.

F I S H (food information support hope)

F I S H (Food information Support Hope)

In these tough economic times F I S H & Lee Community Church want to help those in need in the local community of Gosport/Lee with boxes of FREE food on a regular basis

F I S H (Food information Support Hope) has been feeding local families for 3 years. They are a team of 6 headed up by Elizabeth Young. Four days a week food is picked up from 2 local supermarkets, packed into boxes and delivered to families living in the Lee and Gosport areas. Currently there are approx 210 addresses on the list, ranging from single people to families, the elderly and people with special needs. F I S H always needs more donations of food, particularly tins, jars and packets, and as the need increases, more volunteers to help collect the food and deliver. Please email Elizabeth at elizabethyoung@leecommunitychurch.org if you know a family in need or are able to help serve in this ministry.

A&A Packaging happily donates polythene bags to F I S H to help keep this great charity moving forward.

Freeze Pads for temperature control packaging

Freeze Pads

Freeze Pads are the most flexible refrigerant packaging product (often known as gel pads) used within the food industry and has been at the forefront of refrigerated packaging solutions since 1991. Today it is used by many artisan food producers and the fish industry for which it was originally invented.

New retail packs now available for home use:

Freeze pads have many benefits over the more traditional freezer pad:
• By placing sheets under, around or on top of your products, the freezer pads evenly control the temperature of all the food in the box.
• Freeze pads don’t melt so there is no risk of soggy packaging or damage to other items.
• It can be wrapped around food helping to protect it whilst on the move.
• Even when defrosted, Freeze pads maintain an inherent coldness within the gel making it ideal for use at picnics, BBQs and outdoor catering events.

Increasingly, Freeze pads refrigerant packaging is used by caterers when transporting food to indoor and outdoor events.

For extra temperature control, simply wrap the food and Freeze pad in bubble wrap.

Not only can Freeze pads be used to keep the food cool during transit, but even when the cells defrost, the inherent coldness remains within the gel. By placing a buffet platter on top of a sheet of Freeze pads, the food will remain fresher for longer.

Trade benefits include:
• It is easily stored. A box of Freeze pads is the equivalent of a pallet of water filled packaging.
• You control costs by using exactly what you need in sheet form or from the perforated roll.

For more information or to order your Freeze Pads, call the sales team on: 023 9259 7792 or email us at mail to: sales@aandapackaging.co.uk

ISO 9001:2008 A&A Packaging Now Certified

A&A Packaging is always moving forward and now with ISO 9001:2008 Certification

What is ISO 9001:2008?

ISO 9001:2008 Certification will give your organisation the quality systems that will provide the foundation to better customer satisfaction, staff motivation and continual improvement.

Meeting the requirements of this standard will provide quality management systems that will be of real benefit to your organisation to help manage your business effectively and put in place best practice methodology.

ISO 9001:2008 certification is suitable for all sizes and types of organisations and is well established around the world as an invaluable Quality Management System standard. It is suitable for organisations in all industry sectors and will help your organisation to improve management processes to compete locally and/or globally.

The process encompasses the entire organisation and requires senior management buy-in, it is not just a function of the Quality Department. To achieve ISO 9001:2008 certification your organisation needs to demonstrate that it can meet the regulatory requirements and apply the system effectively to be of real benefit to your customers.

Scope
As an ISO 9001:2008 certified organisation we will have implemented Quality Management System requirements for all areas of the business, including:

•Facilities
•People
•Training
•Services
•Equipment

EU Circular Economy proposals “Packaging singled out”

EU Circular Economy proposals, Dick Searle, chief executive, has criticised the EU, insisting packaging is unfairly singled out for special attention.

He said the focus remains on environmental issues and frequently underestimates or ignores the economic impact of these measures.
He said there is not enough understanding and realism of the impact of EU Circular Economy proposals on EU wealth creation and competitiveness.
He also said there is recognition of wide disparities between EU Member States on the measure of recycling – both in terms of calculation and classification.
Regarding litter and costs of collection, he said he could not find any explicit reference to general litter or the suggestion (as in the previous proposal) that producers should be responsible for litter costs or the costs of collecting used packaging.
The EU stated that targets should be: Clear environmental, economic and social benefits would be derived from further increasing the targets laid down in Directive 94/62/EC for preparation for re-use and recycling of packaging waste.
“I suspect that not everyone would support this statement. In any event, very clearly there has been no attempt to set targets based on achieving the best balance between environmental and economic outcomes but rather “plucking figures out of the air”. In my view, it is likely that a general target achievement of 85% would only be possible at a very substantial environmental cost and a massive economic cost.”