Looks a lovely pack and will be much easier to wrap at Christmas -  just goes to show that becoming more environmently friendly doesn’t have to mean loss of style or shelf presence.  It will be interesting to see how the packs withstand possible transit damage.  The tins always seemed very prone to picking up ‘dints’ on shelf.  I hope the pack does really well and look forward to seeing more of the ‘bought to share’ chocolate brands move this way.  (Jane)

Cadbury is trialling a cardboard replacement for its traditional Roses chocolates tin in a bid to reach its packaging weight reduction targets for seasonal and gift packaging.

via Cadbury replaces Roses tin with cardboard box | packagingnews.co.uk.

Something else to consider when designing labels. 

The European Commission is mulling labelling to help consumers’ identify animal welfare-friendly products and incentivise producers to improve welfare. But campaigners say voluntary measures are not enough. Voluntary animal welfare schemes in the EU do exist, but there is no harmonised scheme and there is confusion amongst consumers about the standards they represent. Schemes in use include organic labelling, schemes run by various animal charities like the RSCA’s Freedom Food, retailer’s schemes, and other marks like the Red Tractor, which may only refer to minimum legal requirements.

via Animal welfare labelling schemes up for discussion in Europe.

www.foodnavigator.com

Will be interesting to see what the result of this is -

Australia and New Zealand are to undertake a review of food labelling laws and policy to reduce the regulatory burden on food companies without compromising health and safety.

Requirements for information to appear on food labels in Australia and New Zealand are governed by the Food Standards Code. While there are certain elements that are required on all labels, such as product name, supplier details, use by dates and the presence of allergens, there are frequent demands for more elements to be included.

For more information just follow the link http://bit.ly/1CPikX

www.foodproductiondaily.com

SIG pips rivals to produce first one-litre aseptic FSC carton.

SIG Combibloc has won the race to produce the first FSC-certified one-litre aseptic beverage carton for packaging long-life juice drinks and ice teas.The first run of the new cartons, which are marked with the FSC logo on the corner of the packaging, have gone on sale in all German branches of supermarket Lidl.Its launch means that the company has pipped Tetra Pak to bring a one-litre FSC-certified aseptic carton to market.

via SIG pips rivals to produce first one-litre aseptic FSC carton | packagingnews.co.uk. Ben Bold

Chinese funding to cut specialist food packaging imports – worrying trend?

By Rory Harrington,

A Chinese packaging company said it is to receive multi-million dollar government funding to expand its operations and reduce domestic reliance on specialist packing imports.

Shiner International announced this week that the development of its Packaging Industrial Park project in Hainan will be part-funded by a government grant of RMB 29m ($4.26m).

Domestic boost

The company, which specialises in food safe and anti-counterfeiting packaging, said the cash will be used in the construction of a new facility. The Chinese Government gave the green light to the funding because the plant will help domestic food manufacturers reduce their reliance on having to buy specialist film packing applications from overseas, said the company.

Shiner CEO Jian Fu said: “For quite some time, the Chinese domestic market has relied on the importing of high quality packaging films for high-end consumer products at great expense to Chinese manufacturers. In recent years, the central government has begun to realise the importance of domestically developed key technology products that utilise intellectual property that is developed and owned by Chinese companies such as Shiner.”

Funding for its packaging project will allow the Chinese outfit to make its patented products in a state-of-the-art facility, he added. The money will be used for construction of infrastructures, improvement of capacity and recruitment of senior technical staff for the project.

via Chinese funding to cut specialist food packaging imports.

Edible codes for cheese – not another cheesey story…

Het Kaasmerk BV in, Leiden, the Netherlands, is a manufacturer of assorted blocks of cheese. Kassmerk has been collaborating with Isotron Systems on the traceability and quality control of its cheese for some time.Isotron Systems is the distributor of Cognex vision and identification equipment in the Netherlands. Kassmerk adopted a Cognex DataMan 7500 system to read the codes marked on its individual blocks of cheese.The two-dimensional codes are applied early in the production process and need to be read at the end of production.The only bar-code identification equipment Kaasmerk could find that was capable of working with the blocks of cheese, despite Kaasmerk’s rigorous industrial environment, was the In-Sight Vision System and the DataMan 7500 reader, which are both from Cognex.Identification codes, such as a 2D code or data matrix, are not only applied to state-of-the-art technology products, they are also applied to food products.These codes are mandatory in Europe, and are also necessary for safeguarding of food quality during production. They help minimise food-safety risks after the production phase, because each end product can be individually traced back to the production lot.Passport to traceabilityThe ability to identify each individual cheese as a unique item in the production chain is an essential component. Actually applied to the cheese block itself, the code functions as a veritable passport.

via Edible codes for cheese.

Anti-counterfeiting for corn flakes!

Kellogg’s has developed a hi-tech method to stamp out imitation cereals – by branding Corn Flakes with the company logo.  Kellogg’s to laser-brand individual Corn FlakesKellogg’s Corn Flakes – soon to be branded like cattle.  The new technology enables the firm – which makes 67 million boxes of Corn Flakes every year – to burn the famous signature onto individual flakes using lasers.Kellogg’s plans to produce a number one-off trial batches of the branded flakes to test the system.

via Kellogg’s to laser-brand individual Corn Flakes – Telegraph.

Just goes to show what can be done to make savings without actually compromising the quality of the pack.  Yes I know the pack is smaller, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing in the eye of the consumer.  After all, who likes to open a pack to find that there is a lot of unnecessary ‘empty’ space in it?  There is now a definite group of consumers who will consider this when buying items and it’s good to see that Young’s are advertising the use of less packaging on the front face of the pack.  It does beg the question though, if Young’s can make this kind of saving on a humble product carton what sort of savings could be made on your own products? (Jane)

Seafood brand Youngs has cut the packaging used for its fish pies and on its chilled salmon as part of an ongoing sustainability drive.

via Youngs Seafood cuts packaging for fish pie and salmon ranges | packagingnews.co.uk.

Kraft Foods is investing EUR 15m in a new European biscuit development facility in France.

via Kraft invests EUR 15m in biscuit brand development | packagingnews.co.uk.

Simeon Goldstein, packagingnews.co.uk, 08 October 2009

Josh Brooks, packagingnews.co.uk, 24 September 2009

Ireland’s plastic bag tax is to double under new laws expected to be published next month.

The current 22 euro cent tax on every single-use carrier distributed would double to 44 cents, around 40p, under the proposals.

Comment: It’s great to see the Irish government taking initiatives to reduce POS use of plastic bags, but I still believe  that targeting plastic bags is a political stunt that takes everyone’s eyes off the ‘bigger picture’. There are ‘bigger fish to fry’ such as the 30% food waste generated every day by most households, which used huge amounts of energy and resource to grow it, farm it, transport it, package it, take it home, store it in the fridge – only to be thrown away – let’s get a sense of perspective here! Chris Penfold

Read the full article here: http://tinyurl.com/ydpcrrn