From HP’s latest large format digital printing to whole integrated packaging lines, every hall featured new time-saving, energy saving and environmentally beneficial innovations.
For me, there were a few highlights, most of which will be subject of upcoming interviews on FoodBev.com.
Interactive labelling has caught everyone’s imagination, and with the advent of commercially applied augmented reality, the humble QR code – already around for a decade (in Japan at least) – seems like a thing of the past. So I was interested to discover a new dimension in QR coding on the CCL stand.
iQR is a new technology developed by CCL to dynamically manage media planning. The information received via the code by each user is dependent on time and location, offering huge flexibility with one single, static, printed code.
iQR enables the promotion or marketing message to be changed on a daily, hourly or even minute-by-minute basis, or specifically for certain regional markets. Dynamic results and unique responses are based on the time of day or where the user is at the moment they scan the code.
Multipack lightweighting has seen a huge amount of innovation lately and there were two notable examples at Interpack.
Passing Italian machine manufacturer Ocme, I noticed a secondary packaging innovation and stopped to talk to Steve Wyard. Ocme’s new multi-pack solution, Packetto, uses up to 30% less packaging material than equivalent multipacks.
First seen at Drinktec last September, KHS was displaying its Nature Multi Pack system, based on specialised adhesives, which simply bond containers together to form multipacks for PET bottles, glass bottles and cans.
And talking of savings in material and power, on the Premier Tech Chronos stand managing director Ingo Jonas demonstrated the company’s Stretch-all stretch hood puller which added safety features for the operator and delivers reduced film used for stretch wrapping.
I met Bruno du Plessix on the Sleever International stand and he explained the newly launched LDPET and LWPET for beverage and dairy applications respectively. Both are designed to significantly improve value-added recycling and lower carbon footprint.
LDPET is the first shrink sleeve made from low density PET – down from 40 to 20 microns, enabling improved recovery of used PET bottles. The breakthrough is delivered in three parts:
Aimed at dairy products packed in HDPE, LWPET uses a combination of the new film and the new SleeverCombisteam-LWPET machine, enabling 50% carbon footprint reduction in sleeving.
Finally, on the Mondi stand, Patrick Papst talked me through its newly announced partnership with Nestlé’s Nespresso brand.
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Responding to customer concerns on how to recycle used coffee pods, Nespresso has launched commercials, mainly on Austrian TV, featuring brand ambassadors George Clooney and Matt Damon. The ads promote recycling bags and the concept of consumers collecting spent coffee capsules and then dropping them off at designated collection points.
The new collection bags are made by Mondi Coatings and consist of FSCTM certified paper with a Sustainex coating made from 85% renewable raw materials. The bags can be sealed up cleanly and safely using affixed adhesive strips before being completely recycled along with their contents.
A fuller review of Interpack will feature in future issues of Food & Beverage International and Beverage Innovation magazines.
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