Food In Canada

Sustainable packaging updates from Lassonde and Scholle IPN

Food in Canada Staff   

Food In Canada

Lassonde Industries Inc. Logo (CNW Group/Lassonde Industries Inc.)

Lassonde is proud to announce the launch of new bottles containing 25% post-consumer recycled plastic (rPET) for all its juice brands available in 300-mL portion-size packages in Canada. This change affects all portion-size bottles manufactured by Lassonde for the retail market and the food service industry, including such well-known brands as Oasis, Allen’s, Fairlee and Fruité, and will be completed by end of June 2021. The bottles are made of 25% recycled food-grade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin from post-consumer bottles. In September, Lassonde was the first in Canada to launch paper straws and recyclable packaging (for its Kiju and Simple Drop beverage products).

This launch aims to support Lassonde’s goal of using 50% post-consumer recycled content in its PET packaging by 2025. “This initiative is the logical next step in our efforts to develop even more eco-friendly containers and promote the circular economy. It’s another step toward achieving our sustainable development goals,” says Jean Gattuso, President and Chief Operating Officer, Lassonde Industries Inc. As Claire Bara, Executive Vice-President and General Manager of A. Lassonde Inc., points out, “This new initiative builds on the momentum initiated in 2020 with the launch of paper straws on KIJU juices and Simple Drop water offered in individually sized multi-layer containers.”

This initiative aligns with the company’s vision of sustainable development. By 2025, Lassonde wants to find solutions for replacing plastic straws, introduce 50% post-consumer recycled content in its PET packaging and use 100% recyclable packaging for all of its products, while working together with governments, industry and associations to promote effective sorting and collection of recyclable materials.

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Among its other environmental initiatives, Lassonde has made sustained efforts to reduce the weight of its packaging and decrease the amount of water used in its cooling and sanitization processes.

Scholle IPN, a leading global supplier of flexible packaging solutions, announced today that their bag-in-box packaging for water passed the Association of Plastic Recyclers’ FPE-CG-01 testing, which evaluates the compatibility of flexible packaging with film-to-film recycling processes.

The package is the first bag-in-box format to pass this testing protocol. The testing was completed by Plastics Forming Enterprises (PFE).

Scholle IPN’s new flexible bag-in-box format reduces plastics use by up to 80% per liter of water and has up to 63% less greenhouse gas emissions in production when compared to traditional water bottles. The new offering features a recycle-ready, all-polyethylene structure (including bag film, spout, and dispensing tap) and can be produced in sizes ranging from 2-liters to 23-liters for retail or home-office delivery markets.

PFE tested a bag made with two layers of film and a polyethylene closure. The outer layer, made of Scholle IPN’s RecShield®, is a barrier film specifically designed to keep unwanted flavors from migrating through the film into the water. The inner layer consists of Scholle IPN’s proprietary film technology, known as 2Pure™, which contains scavenging technology that protects the taste of the packaged water.

Teresa Bernal-Lara, Ph.D., Film Development Manager for Scholle IPN, said of the recyclability testing protocols, “A new film technology cannot simply be put out in the world and touted as recyclable—it must go through testing to be recognized as such. The testing performed by PFE compared an all-polyethylene film and closure to Scholle IPN’s innovative RecShield® and 2Pure™ option along with a polyethylene spout and tap. The samples were reduced to flakes which were then extruded into pellets and successfully re-blown into film that can be used to produce new flexible packaging, a truly circular solution. Scholle IPN’s water packaging performed beyond the minimum threshold for compliance set forth in APR’s Critical Guidance Protocol for PE Film and Flexible Packaging (FPE-CG-01) and we have received a letter of recognition from APR for this achievement.”
“Delivering liquid products in the best, most efficient way possible is what Scholle IPN does,” stated David Bellmore, Director of Global Film and Package Development for Scholle IPN. “Our bag-in-box bag and tap make up less than 5% of the overall package weight—with corrugate making up the balance. According to the EPA, corrugate packaging is recycled at a 96.5% rate while PET and HDPE bottles are recycled just 29% of the time. That means our package will not only offer a recycle-ready bag and tap, but around 95% of the overall package by weight is likely to be recycled. Environmentally speaking, plastic water bottles simply don’t match up with bag-in-box.”

Ross Bushnell, President and CEO of Scholle IPN, added “Source reduction is a powerful step in the mitigation of our carbon footprint. By reducing the amount of plastic required to get our customer’s liquids to their end-market, we ensure that there is less waste throughout the product lifecycle. Our new flexible water packaging provides for recyclability where possible while also ensuring critical source reduction that saves our Earth’s diminishing resources for future use.”
Scholle IPN’s recycle-ready bag-in-box packaging for water is available now. Interested companies can learn more at www.scholleipn.com.

 

 


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