Page 41 - Packaging News Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

January-February 2019
www.packagingnews.com.au
FRESH FOOD PACKAGING
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PATENTED TECHNOLOGY
The box is made using Oji’s new patented Kraft cardboard technology, and the three-piece design allows customers to use different
board grades at the ends of the body.
“The weight is in the ends: it transfers from the ends of the boxes to the corner, so if needed OjiFS can make those ends a different board grade to really stiffen it up to make it travel better,” explains Daniel Scavo, GM of merchant Young Sang & Co.
“It doesn’t lean and doesn’t tilt: it stacks square and just works. It also has locating lugs: that means the next box that sits above it has a couple of slots
in the base so they just lock on top of each other so it can’t twist – all of
these little details add up to getting
fruit to market with no damage.”
packed for success
tems – all of which can impact on their bottom line.”
The strength of the company’s tomato box was the first innovation to impress, so it was inevitable the same growers and agri-businesses involved in that development turned their eyes to the zucchini box.
“The horticulture industry is a heavy user of corrugated card- board,” Cairns-Lawrence says. “High compression strength is essential to protect fruit and tree produce from damage due to crush- ing in stacks in chillers, cold stores and freight containers.
“Moisture is critical to zucchini transportation: it has to be kept high so the zucchinis do not dehy- drate and of course by that same very nature, moisture is card- board kryptonite.
“The high performance Kraft and innovative flute combination liner/mediumfromOjiFibreSolu- tions are well suited for produce and the varying conditions in transporting to market, so we are able to produce a specialty card- board with patented designs with maximum strength capacity.
“We are taking packaging to a new playing field. Our strength comes from New Zealand’s sustainable plantation-grown softwood Pinus radiata, the basis of our world class products and one of the strongest wood based fibres in the world.”
Combined with the patented Kraft cardboard technology, the three- piece design allowed customers to use different board grades at the ends of the body.
Cairns-Lawrence says unique OjiFS fibres used for the Kraft card- board also impacted on the print- ing process.
“Our quality of papers provide a fabulous substrate in both Kraft and white together with advanced printing machines we can create precise imagery that really stands out on the boxes.”
Northern AgriServices regional branch manager Paul Walters, who was involved with the collaboration, says factors like moisture, humidity and box strength could compromise an entire pallet of tomatoes, with
buyers like Coles and Woolworths quick to reject an entire pallet if they could see one or two crushed cartons at the bottom.
“If they reject the pallet, that is a straight loss to the grower,” Walter says. “Our main aim is to get pro- duce onto Woolworths or Coles’ floor with zero loss. OjiFS success- fully used their technology to upgrade our tomato boxes, so we quickly turned to zucchinis.”
At the Melbourne Market, mer- chants Young Sang and Co’s GM Daniel Scavo can quickly see a dif- ference and share the feedback.
“As an integrated business, we can give immediate feedback,” Scavo says. “Other growers might think the agent is ‘whingeing’ that their prod- uct is no good, but we have that abil- ity to see the product in-situ and the difference has been dramatic.
“Oji cartons stack straight and interlock brilliantly. They are strong and sturdy: we don’t see any warping even if there is a bit of rain or they get a bit of water on them, and they don’t degrade as rapidly as other cartons.
“We have also found the OjiFS colour print is perhaps 50 per cent better than what we are used to seeing printed on a carton. We have professionally-designed branding and employ another business to print our boxes, so I thought they were the best looking boxes at the market. Once we moved to OjiFS and you had the boxes side by side, the brightness in colour, the clarity of design and the way they present straight up were like chalk and cheese.
“I think it will get to a point where once Woolworths and Coles see how the issues of crushed cartons can be corrected; I think they will tell everybody this is an industry standard. I don’t see other box man- ufacturers being able to compete.”
Not surprisingly, it is Queensland growers and agri-businesses which have been quick to take up product from the new factory.
OjiFS expects the demand for corrugated packaging to grow fast- est in Queensland, driven by long- term growth in horticulture and meat segments. ■
High compression strength and optimum moisture barrier is essential for fresh zucchini packaging.