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If last year’s packaging message was ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ then this year’s theme looks set to be ‘reduce, don’t use, recycle’. Over the past 12 months, an ‘anti-packaging’ movement has emerged led by the unlikely trio of the Women’s Institute, The Independent newspaper and environment minister Ben Bradshaw, who urged Britain’s shoppers to dump unnecessary packaging at the supermarket tills.

Unwarranted packaging has become an environmental crime and the nation’s largest retailers have responded to the negative publicity by implementing a number of measures to reduce the levels of waste that they generate.

These measures range from swapping the materials they use, or the way that they use them, to demanding material that contains a high level of recyclable content and are themselves recyclable. (Another rather more extreme measure of note recently involved a leading supermarket chain appointing an ‘anti-­packaging expert’).

These demands pose a new set of challenges for UK packaging printers, who are already suffering from dwindling margins, but how are they responding to this new business environment and what steps can they take to counteract these pressures?

Dispelling the myths
First off, it’s worth setting a few things straight in defence of the packaging industry when it comes to waste. Most of the packaging on the shelves of the local supermarket – the biggest consumers of packaging materials in the UK – is either there as a result of customer demand or because it preserves the goods that it contains.

For example, a lot of fruit is wrapped in film to protect it both from being damaged in transit and also from consumers squeezing the fruit to check whether or not it’s ripe. (This is a major problem with items such as avocados, which are bruised internally every time someone pinches them, hence the black squidgy bits). There’s also the convenience factor.

A lot of people don’t want to bag carrots themselves and some people prefer to purchase them pre-washed, peeled and diced. The statistics bear this out with pre-packaged fruit and vegetables typically accounting for up to 60% of all fresh produce sold by most major supermarkets in the UK.

In addition, pre-packaged goods, are also pre-priced so there’s no hanging around at the checkout waiting for the item to be weighed, or with more exotic fruit and vegetables, waiting for the till operator to establish whether you’re purchasing a honeydew or cantaloupe melon.

So given the numerous benefits of packaging, why is it being vilified? “There is a huge amount of misinformation and ignorance driving this serious problem,” according to packaging consultant and author of Smart Packaging, Paul Butler. “Packaging is a soft target because everybody uses and experiences it and puts it in the bin. However, it only takes up 4% of UK landfill volumes, which is an extremely small amount.”

Butler believes that retailers are merely trying to capture the zeitgeist. “My view is that we’re going through a fashion cycle, but there will be a lot of dissatisfied customers buying damaged food and experiencing more cases of food poisoning when they do away with packaging,” he cautions.

Butler agrees that the industry needs to get its house in order where there are examples of over packaging, but he feels that the primary responsibility here rests on the shoulders of the retailers who dictate to the food manufacturers and packaging printers about how they want their goods to be presented.

Almost all of the major supermarkets have recently launched initiatives to reduce waste in an effort to bring themselves in line with the Courtauld Commitment – a deal struck with central government that large multiple grocery retailers would cut back on waste by 2010 or face legislation.

But while some in the packaging industry fear that this push could ultimately mean less work for them, others have welcomed the move.

“Retailers are creating an atmosphere to make packaging better for the environment and that can only be a good thing,” says Peter Ettridge, development manager for fresh produce at Amcor Flexibles. “Change will happen much quicker through retailer pressure rather than government pressure.”

Ettridge, whose job it is to come up with packaging innovations, says that all of his time is swallowed up by environmentally led projects and this is creating exciting new challenges and products. For example, the firm has devised compostable trays for apples and pears complete with recyclable plastic film and a bulk packaging product called ‘LifeSpan’ for fruit and vegetables, which extends the life of its contents and can be used to ship goods rather than flying them, thus reducing the carbon footprint.

Ettridge feels the general public is missing the point when it comes to the advantages of packaging. “There’s a whole load of stuff in the middle that the consumer doesn’t really think about and that’s where packaging works really hard,” says Ettridge. “For instance, we gas flush mince in the UK and it lasts for eight days whereas in Sweden they don’t and it only lasts for two days.”

Bob Houghton, group marketing and communication manager at Field Group, concurs with Ettridge. “The problem with packaging is that for most people it is the most visible part of the waste stream and they tend to ignore the value that it gives to them.”

Other than educating the public about the benefits of packaging and being more creative about the products that they offer, what more could packaging printers be doing to aid their cause?

Eco economics
Gaining environmental accreditations, such as ISO 14001 or using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) approved materials, would definitely help printers win business from those retailers looking to green up their supply chain.

“Some of the major retailers, such as Marks & Spencer, are already making sure that the packaging they use has certain accreditations such as FSC,” says Houghton. To this end, several divisions of the firm have attained FSC status and the intention is to eventually roll this out to all of its sites. Houghton adds that Field Group’s sites have already achieved ISO 14001 status and he recommends it as a good starting point for companies wishing to go down the environmental route.

Like Field, Leicester-based Qualvis Packaging cottoned onto the advantages of green printing early on and, today, almost everything that the firm produces is recycled or recyclable. “A lot of companies like ourselves have taken on board the recycled and environmental element because the retailers are very keen on sustainable packaging,” explains Qualvis sales director Jason Short.

He adds that the firm is living proof that being environmentally sound doesn’t mean that you can’t be competitive – Qualvis prints folding cartons for all of the leading supermarket multiples and recently appeared on the BBC’s Working Lunch programme as a shining example of an environmental operator.

Whichever side of the argument you agree with, ultimately, most of the controversy surrounding packaging boils down to commonsense. Coconuts, cucumbers and turnips do not need wrapping in plastic because they already have protective outer shells, whereas delicate fruits such as strawberries and raspberries do.

Less is more
But what about those products that fall into grey areas, for example, pizzas. If they are wrapped in plastic do they also need a cardboard outer sleeve? (Tesco saved 7,467 tonnes of cardboard last year simply by moving from pizza boxes to pizza sleeves). Or how about microwaveable ready meals? Do they need full cardboard sleeves or would a half sleeve do the job just as effectively?

While commonsense should prevail in such matters, the fact remains that retailers like packaging because it allows them to fill it with marketing blurb, and consumers like packaging because of the convenience it offers.

“We’re a service industry,” says Jennifer Buhaenko, UK spokesperson for Pro Carton, the trade association for European paper board and carton makers. “Retailers and packer fillers specify what they want and then the packaging industry has to try and fill these requirements by providing an environmentally friendly, cost efficient, fit for purpose product.”

In the future, something will have to give but until that time packaging printers will carry on responding to market demands as best as they can through innovation.