Greiner Packaging shows sustainable packaging solutions at Cfia Rennes

Greiner Packaging will be exhibiting at Cfia 2022 in Rennes, France, from March 8 to 10. Visitors to hall/stand 9-D12 will see the company’s latest innovative solutions which improve packaging recyclability, use less material and incorporate increasing amounts of recycled material – while delivering outstanding on-shelf presence.

What highlights will you experience at the show?

• K3^® r100 – the self-separating cardboard-plastic cup
• Lightweight IML cups – less plastic, more sustainability
• Digital Watermarks – new possibilities for recycling and marketing

“For over 60 years, Greiner Packaging has produced innovative and sustainable packaging, designed to protect a wide variety of food products from yogurts to salads, for customers all over the world,” says Sales Director Cedric Fluery. “Today, Greiner Packaging is focused on producing sustainable plastic packaging, delivering innovative solutions developed through design for recycling, reducing the use of plastic, while increasing the amount of recycled material, and reducing CO₂.“

For 25 years, Cfia has provided the forum for the biggest players in the food-processing sector to meet and network with international suppliers presenting their latest innovations.

Visitor can pre-book one-on-one appointments with Sales Director Cedric Fluery and the French Greiner Packaging team by visiting the Greiner Packaging website.

Greiner Packaging’s K3^® cardboard-plastic packaging solution is one of the world’s most sustainable packaging choices. Dairy customers were the first to capitalize on its environmental benefits and added-value marketing features, but K3^® has now also been widely adopted by producers in the food-on-the-go, and in-cup drinks markets.

K3^® combines a lightweight plastic cup with a removable cardboard outer wrap. Plastic remains the most effective packaging medium for food products as it protects, extends shelf-life and reduces food waste. The K3^® cup saves up to 50% plastic when compared to a direct printed cup of the same size, and as well as being fully recyclable, the plastic used to make K3^® cups can also be made from recycled materials such as rPET.

A patented tear-tab enables easy and intuitive separation of the two parts by consumers, so that they can go to the correct recycling streams. To deal with the occasions when that does not happen, Greiner Packaging has now also successfully trialled K3^® r100 – a solution in which the cardboard wrap separates itself from the plastic cup during the waste collection process, and therefore before the packaging arrives at the NIR (near infrared) detection in the sorting unit. This innovative development makes K3^® cups substantially easier to recycle, with the cardboard and plastic assigned to the correct material streams during the initial sorting process before being recycled.

IML lightweight cups deliver a 20% weight reduction compared to standard IML cups. They offer a smaller carbon footprint thanks to reduction in materials, are made out of Polypropylene (PP) for filling with warm or cold products, and feature IML (in-mold label) decoration for optimal branding and premium look.

In the past, the in-mold labeling (IML) decoration method was only ever used in combination with injection molding production technology. But now, Greiner Packaging has built on its longstanding core competency in thermoforming to offer thermoformed IML cups (T-IML). The benefit of the technique is reduced material usage – less plastic is required for thermoformed cups, which saves resources while also making the cups lighter. As a result, T-IML cups are responsible for fewer CO₂ emissions during transportation. Both the cup and the IML label are made of PP, making for a monomaterial solution that is very easy to recycle.

“Visitors to Cfia will see how Greiner Packaging is working with the latest technologies to improve recycling through the use of digital watermarks to enable easier sorting,” says Cedric Fluery. “And they can be part of the process by scanning the digital watermark on our interactive K3^® promotion cup with their smartphones. They can then enjoy the augmented reality experience as the cup comes alive and tells them how to recycle the packaging!”

Find out more about Greiner Packaging at Cfia Rennes here.