Page 8 - Packaging News Magazine July-Aug 2020

8 NEWS |
www.packagingnews.com.au | July-August 2020
LJM Victoria buys food packer OCT
LJM Victoria has acquired Victoria-based OZ Connect Traders (OCT), a primary food packer that transports more than 10 million raw food pack- aged products annually for Australia’s food retailers and food exporters.
Within the past 12 months, LJM also established joint ven- tures with Multipack in Sydney and New Zealand’s brand-activation specialist Hoop to expand significantly its co-packing footprint in Australia and New Zealand.
Lance Miles, director and founder at LJM, said the Australian co-packing space is rapidly expanding.
“The acquisition of OCT places us in a prime position to capitalise on market growth to become Australia’s pre- mium primary and secondary co-packer. We are scaling up in a new area – blending, fill- ing, and packing raw foods,” Miles said. ■
SA distillery adds AR island
SOUTH Australian craft spirit brand Twenty Third Street Dis- tillery launched its Bushfire Recovery Signature Gin, featur- ing augmented reality (AR) on its scannable label.
The Bushfire Recovery Sig- nature Gin was created to sup- port SAVEM’s (South Austra- lian Veterinary Emergency Management) work on Kanga- roo Island following the recent bushfire season.
Twenty Third Street Distill- ery worked with Kangaroo Island assemblage artist Janine Mackintosh for the label design of the limited-edition gin, while the AR feature – developed by South Australia-based Label- MotionAR – takes consumers to the island when using the LabelMotionAR app.
The Bushfire Recovery Gin features AR on its label.
Govt commits $190m to boost recycling sector
LJM has seen a period of expansion.
THE Australian government announced Monday that it would commit $190m to a new recycling modernisation fund.
The government said the fund would generate $600m in recycling investment, create 10,000 jobs, and divert more than 10 million tonnes of waste from landfill. Commonwealth funding is to be contingent on co-funding from industry, states, and territories.
The fund is to support inno- vative investment in new infra- structure to sort, process, and remanufacture materials such as mixed plastic, paper, tyres, and glass.
The establishment of the fund is part of a national strategy to
change the way Australia looks at waste, grow the economy, protect the environment and reach a national resource recov- ery target of 80 per cent by 2030.
Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley said the waste and recycling transformation will reshape Australia’s domestic waste industry, create jobs, and put valuable materials back into the economy.
“Australians need to have faith that the items they place in their kerbside recycling bins will be re-used in roads, carpet, building materials and a range of other essential items,” she said.
Packaging colossus Pact Group welcomed the announce- ment; its CEO Sanjay Dayal
spoke at an event announcing the fund. “This is exactly the kind of support that we have been seeking,” Dayal said.
“We look forward to working with both state and federal gov- ernment to build the recycling infrastructure that Australia desperately needs.” ■