The world does not need more food packaging. It needs better, renewable ones. Chemistry plays a key role in increasing sustainability and reducing food waste by enabling safe and functional fiber-based packaging. But the features that make a food package more sustainable, more durable or smarter are almost always invisible. Equally invisible are the many solutions that can reduce and prevent food and plastic waste throughout the supply chain. It’s time to pay attention to the unseen.
Looking to replace fossil-based raw materials in papermaking? Watch our webinar to learn about our new internal sizing chemistry, made from sunflower oil.
The food industry and the food packaging value chain are rapidly changing, challenged by the need to be more sustainable and resource-efficient and to meet the demands of urban consumers. What does the future of food and food packaging look like?
Watch our webinar for insights on how food is purchased, packaged, and consumed in a ten years’ time. You’ll learn about four possible scenarios for the future and find out what each of them would mean for the brand owners and the food packaging value chain, if they became a reality.
The global challenges of food loss and plastic waste present great opportunities for us to come up with practical solutions.
ArticleFood packagingPulp & Paper
Recently, Kemira investigated what food and its packaging could look like in ten years’ time. Four possible futures were identified in the scenario work, and one of them is all about green packaging experiences.
WebinarFood packagingPulp & Paper
As brand owners are making pledges to improve the sustainability of their packaging, paper and board producers are seeking alternatives to fossil-based raw materials. In this webinar, we discuss the role of hydrophobation and introduce a novel internal sizing chemical for paper and board applications.
ArticleFood packagingPulp & Paper
Food is much more than simply what’s on the plate. For many, it is also a significant way of self-expression – not just fuel for the engine, but something that describes and defines who we are. We recently investigated how we will purchase, package, and consume food in ten years’ time. According to one of the four future scenarios that were identified, “You are what you eat” could be the mantra that most consumers will live by.
WebinarFood packagingPulp & Paper
The food industry and the food packaging value chain are rapidly changing, challenged by the need to be more sustainable and resource-efficient and to meet the demands of urban consumers. What does the future of food and food packaging look like?
ResearchFood packagingPulp & Paper
How will food consumption and food packaging look like in 2030? Our future scenario survey provides four plausible alternatives for the future and paints pictures of consumer attitudes and behavior, packaging trends, recycling, and regulation in ten years’ time.
High quality packaging board both protects a wide variety of products and promotes brands in the best possible way. This requires properties such as strength and stiffness, lightest possible weight as well as superb printing and converting of the package. With liquid packaging and food service grades, strict standards for hygiene and cleanliness must be met. We offer industry-leading chemistry expertise to help board manufacturers reach all desired qualities.
Hygiene is the top priority for food service board suppliers. At the same time, paper machines are known to be prone to problems related to uncontrolled microbiological (MB) growth. The combination of potential troublesome MB growth and the need for a very high level of hygiene makes MB control a subject no paperboard producer can ignore.
Biofilm or slime growth on board machine surfaces can have drastic negative effects on both machine runnability and end-product quality. Uncontrolled bacterial growth causes unstable wet-end chemistry, taste or odor issues, spoilage of papermaking additives, and harmful bacterial sporulation. For example, a two-day outbreak of bacterial spores on a board machine can lead to the loss of thousands of tons of finished food packaging board, at a cost approaching millions of euros. With Kemira’s chemistry and application expertise, you can cure and protect your board machine from troubles caused by microbes.
Fiber based food packaging materials are more sustainable than plastic, but they set high demands for qualities such as hydrophobation and liquid resistance. Liquid resistance is one of the most important packaging board characteristics that is needed for all take-away food packages such as noodle cups, coffee mugs or hamburger boxes. Thanks to liquid resistance, consumers are able to keep their fingers clean and liquids and grease inside the food packages.
In addition, board should be easily printed on and converted into highly appealing packages with brilliant color reproduction. High-quality packages should not only protect the enclosed products, but also help promote brands in highly competitive markets – where every little detail counts. All this requires expertise in chemistry.
Kemira is a world-leader in sizing chemistries that provide liquid resistance to your packaging board. We also have a broad expertise in applications and analysis methods for improved printability and convertibility.
Today’s consumers do a lot of shopping online which has driven changes in packaging materials. Product packages have to look appealing, be strong enough to survive being shipped around the world, and still look good when they are finally delivered. At the same time, consumers are expecting more sustainable packaging materials. Lighter weight packaging is one way to improve sustainability: lighter packages mean lighter load and reduced fuel consumption as well as reduced transportation costs.
Kemira chemistries enable reducing basis weights in board-making with no decrease in strength, stiffness or performance. We offer a portfolio of strength chemistries that enable the lightweighting of your sheet while increasing the strength and quality of your finished products. We can also improve your machine runnability and reduce sheet breaks and downtime. Overall profitability can be improved through fiber savings, lower energy consumption in the drying phase, less tonnage to transport, and reduced volume of the finished products.
Tuija Pohjolainen-Hiltunen
Senior Vice President, Commercial, Pulp & Paper, Americas
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