Category Archives: A&A News

Tesa develops new packs to tackle food waste

Adhesive tapes manufacturer Tesa has developed new flexible packaging, which it claims will help reduce food waste.

Tesa

The Tesa Lift & Reseal pack can be used with a wide range of products and pack sizes, from small, high value snacks to economy budget products.

Peter Spencer, Tesa’s specialist segment manager, manufacturing said, the Lift & Reseal is designed to efficiently close packs more than 20 times, allowing consumers to reseal film-based food packs for the product’s lifetime. The tape strip remains adhesive all the way down as the packaging reduces in size.

It remains effective even if the adhesive face becomes dusty, retaining the freshness of the food items and reducing food wastage, said the company.

Spencer added: “The issue of food waste is obviously not just confined to the UK; European Parliament has established its own targets and the EU Commission has set out a resource efficiency roadmap, which foresees a 50% reduction in food waste, to be achieved by 2025. With our Tesa Lift & Reseal product being fast adopted worldwide, we are hoping that we can play a part in helping to deliver these targets.”

Waste recycling and waste management service ReFood said 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink thrown away every year and the national food industry waste costing an estimated £5bn per year, the UK has topped a poll of the highest waste of food in Europe.

Luxury Packaging MW recognised for Jack Daniel’s and Johnnie Walker designs

Luxury Packaging MW

Luxury Packaging MW has won two awards for the redesign of Jack Daniel’s Sinatra and Johnnie Walker Blue Gift Pack.

Luxury Packaging MW

The Luxury Packaging MW was awarded Silver at the PAC Global Leadership Awards in a brand marketing category for Jack Daniel’s Sinatra, a limited edition whisky created to celebrate Frank Sinatra’s centenary year and his special relationship with Jack Daniel’s.

Each bottle is individually numbered and presented in an elegant, leather lined, midnight blue wooden box.

The second silver award, in the same category, was received for the Johnnie Walker Blue Gift Pack.

The outer packaging consists of rigid board, lined with premium paper that has been dyed and embossed, while the windows on the front and rear allow light to illuminate the whisky inside.

The inner packaging contains an injection moulded, mirror finished fitment, which suspends the bottle.

The reflective surface causes the light passing through the whisky to be projected onto the bottle and box interior. The pack is held shut using a magnetic clip, featuring the famous Johnnie Walker ‘Striding Man’ logo, attached to the side of the pack.

These redesigns were carried out last year.

Sainsburys recalls chicken meals featuring misleading labeling

Sainsburys recalls chicken.

Sainsburys recalls chicken. A selection of chicken meals from its stores as a result of misleading packaging.

Sainsburys recalls chicken

The supermarket giant Sainsburys said a number of products labelled as “Just Cook Chicken Breasts with Piri Piri sauce” actually contained chicken and bacon lattice instead – which includes milk and wheat in the ingredients.

The pork, milk and wheat were not mentioned on the label.

The food could be fatal for those with wheat or milk allergies, and could offend people who do not eat pig meat because of their faith.

A Sainsburys spokesman said: “It has been brought to our attention a small number of packs labelled Chicken Breasts with Piri Piri Sauce contain chicken and bacon lattice which has cheese, wheat and pork that are not declared on the label.

“As a precautionary measure, we are asking customers who have purchased this product to return it to their nearest Sainsburys store, where they will receive a full refund

“No other products or date codes are affected by this issue, and we apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.”

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued an ‘allergy alert’ over the packs – which come in a 326g size with a ‘use by’ date of 24 January 2016.

It warned: “The product is a possible health risk for anyone with an allergy or intolerance to milk or milk constituents and/or an allergy to wheat or intolerance to gluten.”

The Body Shop plans to make packaging out of pollution

The Body Shop is looking to extract harmful greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to make containers and bottle lids.

The Body Shop

 

It’s believed that by 2020 The Body Shop scheme could reduce the number of plastics made from oil by 70%.

The packaging would use methane, a waste product which is said to be more harmful to the atmosphere than C02 when the same amounts are compared, and customers would be encouraged to bring the bottles back to be refilled.

The California-based company which makes the new plastic, Newlight Technologies, collects methane from farms and natural gas refineries.

As explained in the video, the gas is put into a reactor with enzymes to absorb the carbon and oxygen, rearranging the particles into a solid material known as ‘Air Carbon’.

This can be melted down to make pellets which can then be shaped into containers, The packs will adorn the retailer’s range of body butters.

Founded by the late Anita Roddick in 1976, The Body Shop became renowned for its ethical and environmental stance, being against animal testing and encouraging recycling.

For more information on The Body Shop’s unique recycled and plastic packaging projects follow the link:

HOW DOES OUR RECYCLING SCHEME WORK?

For more great content and packaging products from A&A Packaging take a visit to Supplies Direct

 

UK plastics packaging recycling lagging behind EU

UK plastics packaging recycling

UK plastics packaging recycling rate during 2013 was below the EU average, according to the latest data.
UK plastics packaging recycling
Paper and cardboard Packaging recycling rates performed far better, ahead of the EU average, and across all materials the UK ranked 15th out of 28 states.

Figures published via the European Commission’s data website Eurostat show that the UK recorded a plastics packaging recycling rate of 31.6% in 2013, compared to an average of 37.3% across all 28 EU member states.

The UK ranked alongside Estonia, Hungary and Luxembourg, which achieved rates of 28.1%, 30.8% and 32.2% respectively.

Better performing member states such as Sweden and the Netherlands recorded plastics recycling rates of 45.6% and 46.2% respectively.

However, plastics packaging recycling was up more than 6% on 2012 in the UK, the largest single 12-month increase in over a decade.

The figures come as the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) consults on whether to amend the UK’s plastics packaging target for 2016 in the wake of market pressure.

The target currently stands at 52%, and is set to rise to 57% in 2017.

But under the proposals, the current target may fall to 48% – increasing by 1% each year until the end of the decade.

With glass recycling the UK performed far better but still failed to meet the EU average, recycling 68.3% of its glass packaging in 2013 against the EU’s overall total of 72.8%.

And on metals, the country also lagged far behind many of its EU counterparts, recycling 57.4% of packaging compared to an average of 73.9%.

The UK did however recycle more paper and cardboard packaging compared to many EU states, achieving an 89.4% rate compared to an average of 84.7%

Across all material streams, the UK performed somewhat better with 64.6% of packaging recycled – ranking it 15th out of 28 states. This compares to an EU-wide average of 65.3% for the year.

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