According to Anheuser-Busch, it will work with metals giant Rio Tinto on bringing low-carbon aluminum to its cans via a manufacturing process that will ultimately cut carbon emissions by 30% per can. This falls under the beverage giant’s pledge, launched in 2018, to cut carbon emissions by 25 percent across its supply chain by 2025.

The partnership with Rio Tinto will reportedly leverage a disruptive new process called ELYSIS, a type of zero-carbon aluminum smelting technology, in tandem with using renewable hydropower for manufacturing.

Michelob Ultra, the fastest-growing beer brand in the United States, will be responsible for a pilot project of a million cans produced using the new process. While 70% of the average Anheuser-Busch can is already made of recycled materials, pairing it with low-carbon aluminum will mean cutting carbon specifically in the packaging supply chain, which is the sector of its process responsible for the most emissions.

According to AB’s Vice President of Procurement and Sustainability, Ingrid De Ryck, the new project “will bring low-carbon aluminum to the forefront with our consumers and create a model for how companies can work with their suppliers to drive innovative and meaningful change for our environment.”

Paper-based packaging solutions provider Smurfit Kappa has introduced a new range of eBottle packaging solutions for online beverage and liquids market.

The new product portfolio consists of several sustainable solutions, including the Rollor bottle pack, BiPack, and Pop-up insert, for single and multi-pack products.

Smurfit Kappa Europe innovation and development vice president Arco Berkenbosch said: “Our new eBottle product range offers beverage businesses a suite of fit-for-purpose and bespoke packaging solutions which address the key challenges for their e-commerce channel.

“The innovative range, combined with our focus on e-commerce processes, supply chain and consumer experience, have all contributed to increased sales and greater efficiencies for our customers.”

Smurfit Kappa also provides a host of automated solutions to enhance packaging processes, in addition to the new eBottle product range.

The new product portfolio is part of Smurfit’s Better Planet Packaging range, which is produced using sustainable, renewable and recyclable raw materials.

InterDrinks is an eMerchant that sells overs 2,500 different types of beers and beer products.

Smurfit Kappa has launched a flexible and advanced packaging solution, which is suitable for various sized products marketed by InterDrinks. It also consists of an automated assembly that mounts the packs as needed.

Smurfit Kappa market development director Herwin Wichers said: “The online European alcohol beverage market is worth €5.6 billion and we want to help companies take advantage of the real growth and opportunity in this segment.

“As a result of the implemented packaging and automation solution by InterDrinks, it has increased its packing and filling capacity by 66%, allowing it to fulfil more orders, faster.”

Counting food products by the piece is regarded as the most efficient, cost-effective alternative to modern weighing and pick-and-place systems for a wide range of products, as counting accuracy is not affected by small weight variations between individual pieces. Optical counting—as opposed to weight-centric quality control—guarantees that the net contents in terms of count is 100 percent accurate for both wholesale and retail packages. Optical counting also prevents product loss, avoids product wastage, and maximizes production efficiency.

The WD Series are scalable for varying production levels. Compatible with all industrial packaging machines, highlights include a compact footprint of just 60 centimeters, FDA-compliant product parts for processing both food and non-food products and streamlined tool-free disassembly.

Other features of the WD series include a product detection unit with 100 percent accuracy, hinged side panels for optimal cleanability and vibratory plates for product transport and separation. A timing hopper for discharging product counts is also built in, along with a vibratory sieve with collector tray. A Cremer counting machine is recognized for its limited number of moving parts and low contact surface, which makes cleaning a breeze.

The WD Series’ stainless-steel frame and contact parts are corrosion-resistant and designed for low-pressure hose wash and sanitizing chemicals. Additionally, the WD Series includes a separate parts trolley for convenient sanitizing. With its compact footprint, the WD series machines can easily be placed on a hygienic platform, on top of a Vertical Form Fill Seal (VFFS) bagmaker or over an indexing tray or carton conveyor. Fully customized hygienic counting machines are also available.

In 2020, Unilever announced their largest in-store refill trial in Europe, in Asda’s sustainability store in Leeds. Since the launch, they have been able to review our progress as the appetite for refillable products increases and consumers look to reduce their plastic consumption.

With the Asda trial proving popular with shoppers, they are expanding our refillable packaging trials across the UK. This includes our first-ever ‘return on the go’ pilot where shoppers looking for a quicker grab-and-go purchase can pick up a pre-filled stainless steel bottle from the shelf and return it in-store once used, where they are collected to be cleaned and refilled.

The bottles, which are pre-filled with some of our best-known UK brands – including Persil, Simple, Radox and Alberto Balsam – will be available in selected Asda and Co-op stores by the end of the year. They will be placed in-aisle to see if integrating refillable products into usual shopping habits will increase uptake.

In addition, we will continue to test ‘refill on the go’, where consumers can purchase and refill reusable stainless steel bottles using a standalone refill machine.

These new test-and-learn trials will be the first of their kind at this scale in the UK. The aim is to gain a deeper understanding of the likelihood and habits of consumers using refillable and reusable packaging. They will evaluate different refill models, store formats and in-store locations, as well as different shopper experiences that could enable long-term use of refillable products.

“To tackle plastic pollution with the speed and urgency needed, we must create scalable solutions which make it as easy as possible for people to make sustainable choices,” says Unilever UK & Ireland EVP & General Manager, Sebastian Munden.

“We believe refills could be a game-changer in our ambitions to halve our use of virgin plastic by 2025; however, unlocking the full potential of the reuse economy requires a shift in mindset of how people shop. We are testing different refill models on a large scale in order to continue to build our understanding of how to enable this change most effectively.”

 As social distancing and governmental restrictions on restaurants due to covid-19 continue, take away and home delivery demand is increasing dramatically. Food can be safely distributed directly from the kitchen to the front door of consumers who do not want to or cannot visit the restaurants. As a consequence, demands on packaging solutions adapted for this part of the hospitality sector are growing.

Two different snack boxes are examples of patented packaging developed by AR Packaging to answer on customers’ increasing needs for take-away & delivery solutions. The carton-based snack boxes are perfect for different types of food & beverages to go and they are a more sustainable alternative to plastic-based packaging.

“Snack boxes is one example of our many solutions tailored for the take away and home delivery segment. We also develop customer specific packaging to meet unique requirements for product protection, branding or distribution”, says Yoann Bouvet, Sales Director Food Service at AR Packaging. “Even if home deliveries are now more relevant than ever before, the need for packaging dedicated to take away and delivery will continue to grow also after covid-19 and AR Packaging has additional solutions in the pipeline to be launched within short.”

For more information please contact: 
Ingrid Lidbäck, Group Marketing & Communication Director at AR Packaging
E-mail: ingrid.lidback@ar-packaging.com
Telephone: +46 70 566 31 83

AR Packaging 
AR Packaging is one of Europe’s leading companies in the packaging sector with net sales of approximately EUR 930 million, 5,500 employees and 29 factories in 13 countries. The Group offers a unique range of packaging solutions from its specialised plants. Added value is created to its customers through its broad product offering and deep knowledge of carton-based and flexible packaging. The head office is located in Lund, Sweden. AR Packaging has an objective to grow both organically and by way of acquisitions.

Silent Pool Distillers became the first drinks company to sell a spirit in Frugalpac’s Frugal Bottle for its Green Man Woodland Gin, launched on Earth Day (April 22) and Greek Olive Oil producer Aeons has just unveiled the first oil in a paper bottle, AEONS Exclusive Paper Bottle. They will be joined by Scotland’s NB Distillery who are launching the first low carbon AND low alcohol botanical spirit in a paper bottle called School Night.

The vineyard behind the first wine in a paper bottle, Cantina Goccia, said it’s been such a success they’ll now produce at least 50% of its wine in Frugal Bottles and have unveiled a white wine in a paper bottle, CELI.

Frugalpac has enquiries to make 70 million of its Frugal Bottles and is calling on paper, packaging and co-packer companies to meet the increasing global demand for paper bottles by buying their own Frugal Bottle Assembly Machines. Polling by Survation found that 63% of UK wine drinkers would buy wine in a paper bottle. Frugalpac is currently making paper sake bottles for Japan, olive oil bottles for Greece and has four more wine brands in the US, Spain and England looking to launch in the next few months.

The Frugal Bottle, which is five times lighter than a glass bottle with a carbon footprint six times lower than glass, is the world’s first commercially available wine and spirits bottle made from 96% recycled paper.

Since launching the first wine in a paper bottle last year, from Italian wine producers Cantina Goccia, demand has soared around the globe. Cantina Goccia saw its Frugal Bottle 3Q wine sell-out twice, with one wine chain, Woodwinters in Scotland, selling its whole stock in just one day.

Cantina Goccia is so convinced paper bottles are the future, it’s released their white wine CELI, a blend of Grechetto, Vermentino and Chardonnay in a Frugal Bottle and are set to release a rose in one too.

Frugalpac has strong intent from several international companies to invest in the machine platforms in the next few months.

Frugalpac was recently praised by the UK Government’s Department for International Trade’s GREAT Britain campaign as one of the UK organisations “doing incredible things to help build a global sustainable future” in the run up to this year’s COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow.

And respected wine writer Jancis Robinson recently pointed out in her FT column about wine bottles: “for the sake of the planet we need to look more favourably on the alternatives for wine that is drunk within days or weeks of purchase.”

Frugal Bottles are being produced at a new manufacturing facility in Wickham Market near Ipswich owned by Group Roland.

Frugalpac has also partnered with Silent Pool Distillers to meet orders to fill Frugal Bottles for a growing list of international wine and spirits orders. A dedicated filling line has been installed at their distillery in Albury.

Frugalpac, which is scaling up production to meet worldwide interest for the Frugal Bottle, is calling on bottlers, packaging companies, printing firms and recycled paper suppliers to help them meet this demand by investing in their own Frugal Bottle machine platforms.

REMOTE INSTALLATION AND COMMISSIONING
What do we offer and what does this include?

The option for remote installation includes; easy unpacking instructions and ‘how-to’ videos on a USB drive to get you started. Secondly, an Augmented Reality (TeamviewerPilot) or Microsoft Teams session can be scheduled. This contains; start-up, commissioning and training which allows the customer to get instant feedback, answering questions and live instructions, similar to a physical visitation on site. The training is intended for all employees, such as employees from quality, production and the R&D department.

TEMPORARY EXTENSION CERTIFICATE
Because the travel restrictions have had a huge impact on everybody we have come up with a practical and temporary workaround, so your audits are not affected or as little as possible.

The option for an extension of your calibrated leak detection certificate, will include a thorough analysis by the Oxipack Support-Team for each individual leak tester. They will be in contact to help you collecting the right data.

Once the data has been checked and verified, they will set-up a temporary extension certificate which will be valid for 6 months from date of issue. If bigger issues appear, our team will provide support through Augmented Reality (TeamviewerPilot), to help an engineer solve the issues at hand.

In this way, we can provide an extended certificate which can be used for audits and guarantees correct functioning of the machines at the same time.

SUPEROFFICE SERVICE
After the successful implementation of SuperOffice CRM, we have now implemented a new Service & support tool. Meaning we can handle customer questions and requests efficiently and more accurately. With more people working together in this new system, we can provide an even better service for our customers. Regardless, whether they come by phone, email or web forms.

We have also included our machine database into this new tool, so it will be even more efficient to keep track of machine status, such as certificate renewal or expiration of yearly maintenance.

In these ways, we can continue to offer our customers the service and support they are familiar with, despite the corona crisis.

With the need for on-the-go anti-bacterial products on the rise, it is common for brand owners to find themselves in a position that calls for swift mobility in innovating and launching products that satisfy market needs. Elysian Labs & veteran-owned GarmaGuard™ wanted to provide their customers with a dispensing experience that offered more convenience, comfort, and mobility than a traditional aerosol actuator and cap combination. By leveraging unique Aptar’s expertise in aerosol dispensing, GarmaGuard quickly found itself in a great position for a seamless transition into Aptar’s Moritz: a twist-to-lock, hoodless aerosol actuator.

The Moritz actuator allows for consumers to have a more comfortable experience due to the contoured finger pad, while the actuator’s audible lock provides on-the-go users with security & peace-of-mind. GarmaGuard uses an innovative, organic formula, which eliminates odor-causing bacteria from clothing, shoes, and uniforms with just a quick spray. Made for professional first-responders like nurses and law enforcement, the product is gentle on all fabrics and free of harsh chemicals.

With a new found take on convenience, comfort, and on-the-go security, overall consumer sentiment is overwhelmingly positive.

About Moritz

Moritz by Aptar Beauty + Home is a classic twist-to-lock actuator solution featuring a low profile hoodless design. Moritz eliminates excess plastic vs. traditional aerosol caps while providing peace of mind for secure transportation.