The pandemic has reshaped the priorities of companies that make consumer packaged goods (CPG), according to PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. Sustainability is also a driving force.
In January 2020, prior to the pandemic, the association surveyed about 80 professionals responsible for packaging operations among CPG companies, including Kellogg’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola, and Kimberly-Clark, and asked about their priorities. Their No. 1 response was flexibility.
“When we’re talking about flexibility, we’re talking about the packing line’s ability to move from or change from one container format to another one or from one container size to another one,” said Jorge Izquierdo, PMMI’s VP of market development.
However, when PMMI conducted the same survey in August 2020, the No. 1 concern was worker safety.
At the beginning of the pandemic, CPG companies faced increased demand for individually packaged items, including foods and beverages, as consumers shifted to eating at home more and in restaurants less. At the same time, they were hit with labor shortages due to sick workers and quarantines that could involve entire teams.
When PMMI conducted the survey again in August 2021, the association discovered that the companies cited “workforce needs” as their No. 1 priority, followed by automation and productivity.
Like most businesses, CPG companies are having difficulty finding enough workers.
“Workforce in manufacturing, of course, has been an issue for a number of years — I guess for the last 10 years. Since COVID, it’s been unbelievably hard for manufacturing, and now it’s taking the No. 1 priority,” Izquierdo said.
“We’re using the term workforce because it [the worker shortage] is at all levels. It’s labor, it’s operators, it’s technicians, it’s engineering staff. It’s really, really tough,” he said.
Sustainability driving rise of flexible packaging
Another trend is a shift toward flexible packaging, which has been growing consistently for a number of years, for reasons that include lower cost, improved appearance and better sustainability, due to a reduction in the amount of plastic used.
CPG companies want to adopt more sustainable packaging, Izquierdo said. However, one of the complications is defining what makes packaging sustainable.
“It’s a foggy definition because in many cases CPGs define sustainability based on the way consumers define sustainability,” Izquierdo said. “CPGs do want to offer sustainable solutions, but they also want to fulfill what consumers see as sustainable solutions, and there is not always a complete match. Many times, consumers define sustainable solutions based on social media, based on what they learn on Facebook or on messages that they get in different ways that is not necessarily scientific or not necessarily valid for your location, for your country or for your state.”
As a result of consumer demands, manufacturers are switching to flexible packaging that is recyclable or biodegradable, Izquierdo said. However, finding ways to recycle or compost plastics can be challenging for consumers. There also is concern about the possibility of biodegradable plastics entering the recycling stream and contaminating the traditional plastics.
The Contract Packaging Association (CPA), which represents contract manufacturers and contract packagers in North America, also reports that its members are responding to rising demand for sustainable and compostable solutions.
“The good news is, compostability seems to be suddenly a very prominent piece, which it hadn’t been for a long time. Compostability had been kind of the poor stepchild, but compostability seems to be gaining some traction,” Executive Director Ron Puvak said.
In addition, brand owners more often are requesting the use of bioplastics in their packaging.
“It’s anything that’s replacing a current plastic format today, but it’s coming from a more bio-derived or sustainable source that doesn’t use petrochemicals.
“The PlantBottle is a great example from Coca-Cola,” Puvak said.
The soft-drink maker replaced up to 30 percent of the petroleum used to make PET bottles with material from sugarcane and other plants. The packaging looks, functions and recycles like traditional PET but has a lighter footprint on the planet and its scarce resources, according to Coca-Cola.
Other companies have launched similar initiatives with bioplastics made from sugarcane, algae, switchgrass and other plants, Puvak said. The bioplastics can be used as drop-in replacements for traditional polymers because they are chemically identical to their fossil-fuel-based counterparts.
A downside is that they are more expensive, he said.
Other downsides to compostable plastics are the need to educate the public and recycling facilities about the materials and a need to develop better infrastructure, Puvak said.
“Compostability isn’t just throw it out in your backyard and it goes away,” Puvak said. “Compostability has to be an active process, but there are composting facilities that are being developed or have been formed in the United States. The biggest thing is, can we separate those materials out of the waste stream and get them to the composting facilities, and are there enough composting facilities?”
Material recovery facilities (MRFs) in the U.S. don’t separate out compostable plastics and direct them to composting facilities.
“It’s an education process,” Puvak said.
He eventually would like to see MRFs use technology to separate out compostable plastics and direct them for composting instead of sending them to a landfill.
Puvak said he recently attended a conference in which he learned about a company in Pittsburgh that has contracted with corporate and university cafeterias to collect their compostable plates, forks, cups, and other items and take them to numerous sites where they are composted and the material is sold as topsoil. However, he said, so far not many of these types of facilities exist.
Another complication companies can face when switching to a bioplastic or a biodegradable plastic is that the performance of their production lines may drop.
It’s very likely that the temperature needed to seal the sustainable packaging may be different, the pressure may be different and the time required to seal the packaging may be longer, Izquierdo said.
“Even though you’re accepting you’re going to drop your performance, you need to spend some time understanding your line, understanding the material and understanding how to get the optimum performance for that material,” Izquierdo said.
CPGs are asking materials suppliers and packaging equipment OEMs to help them shorten the learning curve, he said.
Paper pushing
In some cases, companies are shifting to paper packaging. The decision isn’t necessarily because one form of packaging has a lower carbon footprint than another or is more recyclable: “It’s mainly because of the perception of consumers about plastics,” Izquierdo said.
Paper packaging may not have the same barrier properties as plastic packaging, he said. That could reduce shelf life. If a polymer coating is added to the paper to improve its barrier properties, it can make recycling difficult, he said.
“When it comes to the packaging itself, we are typically driven by the brands’ requests as to what it looks like,” Puvak said. “The good side is we’re seeing a lot of demand for recycled materials being used and bio-derived materials, but there are a lot of requests for non-plastic related packaging. There’s more and more of it.”
“I think that in consumers’ eyes, anything that uses plastic isn’t considered sustainable,” Puvak said. “That’s the problem.”
Many consumers equate paper to trees and therefore believe it is sustainable. When weighing the sustainability of packaging materials, it’s important to consider factors like water usage, chemical waste, and how much paper is truly recovered, Puvak said.
Bruce Geiselman, senior staff reporter
Contact:
The Contract Packaging Association, Herndon, Va., 571-287-6818, www.contractpackaging.org
PMMI (The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies), Herndon, Va., 571-612-3200, www.pmmi.org
Bruce Geiselman | Senior Staff Reporter
Senior Staff Reporter Bruce Geiselman covers extrusion, blow molding, additive manufacturing, automation and end markets including automotive and packaging. He also writes features, including In Other Words and Problem Solved, for Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing, Plastics Recycling and The Journal of Blow Molding. He has extensive experience in daily and magazine journalism.
